pushing buttons...

Best song of 2011...

2012-01-05T23:13:00.000-08:00

Tidbits

2011-06-14T00:36:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been over a year and finally I have taken some time to update the old blog. Unfortunately this post will not tackle a serious topic but perhaps next time or maybe I'll take another year off.

Anyhow, I was at some dev meet up and John "I hope that's right, and I forgot your last name" over at Naughty Dog asked me to write more about animation systems and theory in the vain of my previous posts. Well that is going to have to wait but in the meantime here is a great article to hold you over.

"Darkstalkers and the Twelve Principles of Animation". If you have already read it, read it again because I do all the time just so I don't forget.

Also here are a few other resources I constantly use to steal ideas from or use to explain something to an animator.

Street Fighter Third Strike Sprite Animation Library
This site is absolutely amazing as it tears apart everything 3S has to offer for your consumption. Each character sprite set is viewable and even downloadable, along with full VFX rips and background rips. In addition to all this, sound and voice files are available along with a nice tutorial for sprite ripping.

The Fighter's Generation
This site is the most complete library of fighting game characters that I know of on the internet! The site has tons of ripped sprites for 2D games, a lot of artwork per character, and news about anything fighting games.

In other news, Mike Birkhead started to blog on all things beat'em up design and a few other things in between. Hurry over to his blog to level up as he has been covering many lessons learned by all the combat designers that have touched the God of War franchise at both Sony Santa Monica and Ready at Dawn.

Combat Encounters
Designing Enemies - part 1
Designing Enemies - part 2
Designing Enemies - part 3

Finally, here is an amazing article "How to steal like an artist" that hit home for me as all I do is steal when I design, I have no misconceptions that I am a thief, fraud, or however you like to phrase it!

Well that is enough pointless stuff for one night.

Design Efficiency

2010-05-05T02:10:00.000-07:00

If only publishers would allow designers to design tight little experiences like this instead of a "back of the box" features 1 through 100. Sadly most designers would hate to work in small boxes anyhow, so I guess it's not all the publishers fault. Perhaps this is what indie games are for? I'm a big fan of simple clean designs but I have yet to really execute one, this makes me sad. Hopefully one day I will be able to execute a simple and clean design that is quite intuitive much like the original iPod Three Click Design Rule which stated that any menu on the device could be accessed in 3 clicks or less. The 3 Click Rule is also a staple of web page design stating that people will leave the site after 3 clicks if they do not access what they are seeking but this has sort of been proven false over time. I still use this mentality when trying to map mechanics and actions to the controller so it was a good lesson learned either way!

Love everything about this: the sequel...

2010-05-02T23:38:00.000-07:00

Ok I am pretty sure music is way more interesting to me then games at this moment. I go through this every now and again but by E3 I am sure games will have taken over again. Until then Pitchfork is gonna be my best friend!

Love everything about this...

2010-03-09T00:13:00.000-08:00

Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear from Gabe Askew on Vimeo.

Ok this is a poor warm up to me actually writing on this thing again... Oh yeah GDC is coming up see you there!

Best excuse ever!

2009-05-18T12:21:00.000-07:00

I wish there was an equivalent to Senioritis for adults because I am totally going through it right now with this blog and other things. Currently I have zero desire to write about anything because I spend all of my time working on too many projects all over the place to even know what time zone I am in anymore. All that being said, sorry to those of you that visit this thing in hopes of reading something interesting or relevant to video games.

BUT... here is what I have been up doing!

I went on my honeymoon to Grand Cayman Islands. Pretty awesome time, swam with dolphins, saw 60 year old sea turtles, went to Hell, drove on the wrong side of the road, drank lots of cherry milkshakes, nabbed some conch shells, took lots of pictures, almost ran over an iguana, snorkeled, and relaxed on the beach. All in all it was a week of bliss with the lovely wife!

Been playing a lot of games as well since I cannot sleep. Just finished the following...

- Wolverine: Props to Raven and my good friend Derek Daniels for doing justice to the character, Blob fight was AWESOME!

- Star Wars The Force Unleashed: On the final boss, doubtful to finish due to cheap nearly instant death loops, fun physics!

- Ninja Blade: Wow is all I have to say, repetitive but I finished each insane cut scene QTE with a bizarre smile on my face!

Also been playing a lot of SF4, still suck but it's fun for old times sake. If you wanna kick my ass because I know lots of people that love to beat up on game designers, feel free to email me your gamertag.

I promise to get back in the swing of things come June when Milestones are finished and travel has subsided!

Oh yeah E3 is coming up so if you are going and want to hang out or whatever drop me a line!

Finally, I leave you with this amazing clip!

GDC

2009-03-24T23:13:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it's happening... if you wanna hang out get in touch.

I'll be wandering around Wednesday - Saturday.

The Orange Tractor

2009-03-05T20:55:00.000-08:00

So I am a big fan of TED Talks, they are interesting, make me think about topics, and excite me about the world and its potential for good. Each time I get ready to travel to developers the iPhone gets filled up with new talks to make the time on the plane and in the hotel pass a little faster. Recently I stumbled upon this incredible new technology called Siftables, watch and be amazed!

I love the idea of these little blocks that hold endless possibilities for learning and entertainment. The first few applications with numbers and letters are really cool and I know my wife would play the word jumble game for hours but the real magic was the interactive narrative storybook. When the cat and dog were snuggling I was excited but my mind was officially blown when he made the cat fly away in the balloon.

Children's books and shows like Blue's Clues always intrigue me because the concepts are so simple yet teach children while they entertained. I think console games are getting really good at teaching but they only teach concepts important to the game, not the outside world. Now this is what they are supposed to do but perhaps all the techniques I have learned to teach people how to kill things can be better put to use one day for learning math or a language. All that being said, I am still happy making games for the "Big Kids"!

But hey, if Leap Frog is reading this, let's do lunch!

Attack Animations: Part 3

2009-02-19T00:11:00.000-08:00

What’s more important than the attack animation, simple the reaction animation! I find that more times than not the reaction animations are the difference between a great game and a good game. I mean it’s a pretty simple concept if the attack has terrible payoff then the attack becomes less attractive but if the payoff is great then super duper attractive.

Attack animation should trigger a matching reaction or as close as possible if you have a generic sort of reaction system. This means if you have say an overhead attack, it would be nice to knock the opponent to a kneeling pose. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I do an attack that looks like it would cause one type of reaction but instead if causes something off the wall to happen just because the designer had to work in some extra functionality at the last minute. Try to plan the attack functionality of your game ahead of time so you can build a generic set of reactions to match.

When building combos try to think about how the opponent is still reacting from the previous hit to setup the hit area of the next hit. By doing this, the opponent is always in the right place when the next hit of the combo lands. A common problem with reactions is that they look repetitive so if you build the attack animations in the combo to change levels this can be avoided. This also allows the attacks to build one upon the other in terms of violence and the reactions enhance this escalation for maximum presentation.

Take this example for instance, I have a shotgun for a weapon!

1. Gut Buster
• Attack = Smash the opponent in the stomach with the stock
• Reaction = Doubles over holding stomach while vomiting

2. Tooth Fairy
• Attack = Uppercut the opponent in the face with the stock
• Reaction = Stumbles backward teeth flying from mouth

3. Head Trauma
• Attack = Crack the opponent over the head with the stock
• Reaction = Drops to a kneeling position spitting up blood

4. Death Sentence
• Attack = Pump then aim downward now fire the shotgun point blank
• Reaction = Flies backward slamming into the ground lots of gore

As you can see the attacks change levels, which cause the reactions to dramatically change levels. Also you will notice that the player’s weapon position is always right in line with the head of the opponent so the next attack can strike easily strike the focal point. The overhead reaction is the best part since the opponent is completely immobilized and spitting up blood thus begging to be finished. Here comes the stylish pump to point blank fire, all execution style to finish the job (for better or worse, violence sells so know how to do it right).

Attack animations translate and by default so do the reaction animations. I hope you are already seeing the problem; it is easy to make the next move in the combo not translate far enough to hit. Lots of games fail to do this and you miss combos for no reason other than they did not think about it until it was too late. At the same time be sure to displace the opponent far enough that the next attack does not collide early and rub on the opponent until the hit collision becomes active.

On a similar note, the time between attack animations is important because if it is longer than the time of the previous reaction the opponent will recover and ruin your combo. In a single player action game all you need to calculate is the time between each hit in a combo and make sure that the reaction animation is greater than that time, problem solved. Please do this because I have played a lot of games recently that do not do this and it frustrating to get screwed out of combos. More importantly if you do it for the player then you will obviously make the leap that you should do it for the enemies against the player to avoid infinite lock down loops which are even more frustrating… Conan final boss black tar minions = GUILTY!!!

Finally when you animate reaction animations I feel it is important to start the animation in the pain pose, not the idle pose. By doing this, the first frame you see of the hit is powerful thus feels good. Also do not use any blend or tween on reaction animations because it will make them feel soft and sluggish instead of hard and crisp.

I am going to close this topic with something I firmly believe in…

Animators have three jobs:

1. Animate
2. Export
3. Meetings

If an animator is implementing moves, writing mel scripts, making effects, or anything else then they are not creating assets which designers need to build the game. Worst those distractions are causing the assets they are creating to be lesser quality. For some that may be too harsh but animators tend to agree rather quickly to the surprise of the production staff.

Well hope this was helpful?!? New topic early next week!

Street Fighter 4 Launch Party!

2009-02-13T01:26:00.000-08:00

Tonight was the big night that was 20 years in the making, the rebirth of a legend STREET FIGHTER!!! The event was amazingly put together and the MOCA was the perfect location for a game that has spawned so much memorable art. They even had cabinets made into pieces of art, one machine was literally an Akuma (Gouki) with beads and smoke or you might think the machine just got raging demon'ed, it's art and thus up for interpretation right?!?

I played a bunch of the new characters that were not available in the earlier versions I played at GDC last year and the fight club night earlier this year. Rose was fun but a felt a little odd, I was hoping she would have her friends super but no such luck. Cammy has a lot of crazy motion going on in her animation and her attacks seemed crisp. I got a nice win streak with Zangief, loving the range on the SPD and his focus attack is the perfect new setup. Overall I want this to be the next big thing and it might just be that but there is something odd about it that I cannot put my finger on yet, hopefully that will go away the more time I spend with it. Oh yeah, lots of game developers were there along with some lower level celebrities if you care about that stuff, like Bai Ling mashing her little heart out and doing it with a smile.
A few stray copies of the game were thrown into a crowd which then caused an avalanche of humans to smother poor by standers that did not understand what getting a copy now meant to some people. Those lucky enough to score a copy will surely not be sleeping tonight for sure!

All in all the night was pretty amazing even though it was a pain to get everyone inside, I mean the fire marshal showed up at one point. The people love this franchise and showed up, let's hope they show up to buy it so it won't fade away again.

Can't wait to learn this game all over again next week! The challenge mode is going to U N B E L I E V A B L E!

Finally big thanks go out to Seth Killian for getting me on the VIP list to avoid that awful line.

One of my Dream Games

2009-02-10T02:28:00.000-08:00

Best book ever for a kid and still a lot of fun as a grown up. When I travel I make it a point to search out a book store and buy a copy in the native language. So far I have the standard english version, italian, spanish, and japanese. I was bummed when it was not available when I was in Korea :(

I love this book, moreover I love what it does... it takes a simple thing such as being a brat about not eating dinner and turns it into an adventure in a magical place with crazy monsters. One of my favorite things in entertainment is the ability to create another world that is full of wonder. Pixar has a knack for being able to create these worlds and Monsters Inc. is my favorite film because of the world they created. The doors, the scream as power supply, the monsters, everything about it feels real, perhaps mundane yet fantastical at the same time. Oddly enough this whole other world creation thing is what I love about games and probably the number one reason I love making them so much!

Anyhow, if anyone knows anything about this being in development as a game or if a developer reads this and wants to make this into a game, PLEASE CONTACT ME!!!

The movie has been caught in limbo for what seems like an eternity but there is hope it will come out this year, Spike Jonze do me proud sir... Oh wait now they might reshoot the entire movie. Bummer, this image will have to do for now.

Attack Animations: Part 2

2009-02-01T23:23:00.000-08:00

Have you ever heard the phrase "Sculpting Time"? Well Cory Barlog uttered that gem during an interview while he was still an animator, we all gave him shit about this quote because it sounds so ridiculously high brow. The truth is animators are doing exactly that, sculpting a chunk of time into an amazing animation based on some design. Design has to think of time as a material such as marble or stone because if the artist has too much material to begin with the sculpture may be too big and take far longer to complete than originally anticipated. Herein lies my first piece of advice, ALWAYS give the animators a frame range.

Frame range can be as general as the total amount of frames or can be as detailed as to break the animation up into four pieces; the anticipation, connection, follow through, and recovery. Design should have a good idea of what frame ranges will work best but if there is any doubt do some testing. Generally three test animations (fast, medium, slow) can determine the speed that seems acceptable for the character. The attack hitting is really important because more than anything else it will determine how fast the game plays, so spend a lot of time testing all sorts of hit ranges. Typically in 3D fighting games the jab hits around 8-10 and if I remember correctly the first strike of Kratos's Square combo hits around frame 12.

If you have no idea what sort of frame ranges may work best for the game you are working on then I suggest buying some of the top notch fighting games and doing some research. Find some moves in the game you like then seek out the frame data to remove a lot of the guess work from the process. If no frame data is available you can always video capture the move and dissect it frame by frame. Heck you can even go old school Jordan Mechner! A few frame data links below...

Street Fighter:
SF2:WW - SF2:ST
SF3:3S
SF4

Tekken:
Tekken Tag
Tekken 4
Tekken 5

Once we have the frame ranges down its time to move onto the translation of our attack animations. The translation of an attack animation serves two purposes: 1.) It makes the player feel like they are mobile and 2.) it closes ground on the enemy to increase the chance of a successful hit. Many games completely fail when it comes to creating good translation for attacks, hell some games have none at all... these games tend to score very poorly on the Metacritic so get down with the translation!

So how do we create good translation, well it comes down to the acceleration and deceleration curves. If the curve is too smooth if feels boring, if it has too harsh of a fall off it feels stilted so again we need to test a lot of motion to determine what kind of curves will work best for the game. Another question is should we translate pre-hit, on hit, or post-hit??? Again this is different for all kinds of attacks, but asking the question ahead of time means you are considering it instead of guessing in the dark. Below are a few types of translations commonly used for attack animations...

Plant - a simple foot planting walk from one attack to another, usually covers short distances and is considered high in fidelity but unresponsive and bland in terms of player feeling.

Slide - hit a pose and slide forward propelled by some amazing force, usually covers long distances and feels really good if the accel/decel curves are on the money.

Shuffle - sort of an split between slide and walk, move the feet but slide along, usually covers medium distances and halts upon connection pose transferring all the translation into the hit.

Other notable variations: Hop, Leap, Dash, Sprint, etc...

The translation of an attack animation is very important because not only does it serve to make the player feel mobile when attacking but it also plays a huge role in determining the size of the combat spaces. Honestly a lot of testing and metric work will be required to figure out what sizes work best with the attack translations. I tend to start with a small space being half the distance of the combo length and the large space being four times the combo length... just get with the level designer and TEST!

Well now we have an animation in the ballpark for timing and translation, check back soon for Part 3!

Attack Animations: Part 1

2009-01-13T00:36:00.000-08:00

I know I'm late but the topic of attack animations was much more difficult to put into words than I had initially expected. Generally I speak about these kinds of topics using a white board and scribble notes so actually writing it all down is a bit foreign and so because of that I am going to tackle this topic in a couple posts. Stay tuned!

Attack animations begin with ideas that should take the "character" into account first and foremost, in other words "Form" before "Function". By doing this we should not have Yoda doing drops kicks, which would be totally out of "character" thus making the player scratch their head instead of enjoying attacking with Yoda. Once enough "Form" ideas have been generated its time to bring "Function" to the table. "Function" dictates when the hit frame is, the total length of the animation, how far the move travels, etc... Now that all the brain dump has taken place its time to combine all the elements of "Form" and "Function" and paper design an actual attack. Ok have fun and brainstorm the crap out of attacks before settling on one for creation!

Time to explain your creation to the animator. Do you know how to speak their language, I hope so or this is all going to end badly :(

The first rule in expressing an idea to an animator is to start with anything NON-TECHNICAL… they are artists after all. Walk them through the idea in words to begin with, hopefully you've already created an animation list with a small written description is available for them to read. Best case scenario is they get what you want because you are an amazing speaker whom can articulate complex ideas through words, ok I am lying this never happens. So here are my Top 3 techniques of getting them to understand the idea.

Acting
• Get out of your seat and act out what in the hell it is you want! This technique not only gives them a visual study of motion but it shows the designer is committed to the idea enough to get up and make a fool out of themselves. The acting also allows the animator to point out issues with motion, footwork, etc… thus creating a healthy creative dialogue!

Puppets
• Ok this one is really just another form of acting but it uses puppets instead of people. Get some toys, stuffed animals, or whatever floats your boat and have some fun with motion and posing to get your idea across to the animator.

Capture Reference
• Video capture reference from other media sources such as sports, movies and other games is a quick and easy way to express complex ideas. The ability to find just about anything on YouTube these days has become a vital tool in my game design bag of tricks! The other nice thing about this is the animator can keep the reference to look at time and time again during the creation of the animation asset.

NOTE: Video taping either the acting or puppets greatly increases their effectiveness by turing them into video reference.

Now that we know how to express our ideas, what ideas should we be expressing for attack animations? Well, for me there are only three things to worry about when creating that great attack animation: Anticipation, Connection, and Follow Through!

Anticipation
• The Anticipation of an attack animation is the calm before the storm; there is something about it that sticks in your brain giving you a sense of destruction before it even happens. Seeing this destruction well beforehand focuses the eye so that the Connection is always seen in the best possible way. The Anticipation pose needs to be achieved quickly and then held for a bit so it reads well on screen, remember that motion is not needed once the pose has been reached. The Anticipation pose should also be very over the top and feel like the weight of the world is about to strike behind it to sell the attack.

Connection
• The Connection of an attack animation is usually a single pose that shows the very best pose of the animation to ensure excellent presentation. If the Connection pose is ever confused as something other than the Connection then it is wrong and should be fixed immediately. Imagine this pose being a freeze frame where all the blood, impact, and sounds are sold to their maximum potential, think of a K.O. blow in a boxing match. The face of the attacker should read power, strength, and dominance where the face of the enemy should read pain, Pain, and PAIN!

Follow Through
• The Follow Through of an attack animation can make or break the attack because it conveys the power after it happens. The Follow Through should have one key pose that is held before the animation begins to recover back to the base pose. Think of a baseball player after he hits a homerun, one could look at that pose in a picture and know what happened. The best way to achieve this is to use strong over the top poses and spend more frames savoring them and less frames returning to the base pose.

This concludes Attack Animations: Part 1, hope to see you back for the next part very soon.

EGM, a goodbye...

2009-01-08T02:04:00.000-08:00

I was so sad to hear EGM was put down, not to mention 1Up being placed in limbo during a buyout :( Man look at that photo above it's glorious! It happens to be the very first issue of EGM I bought from Walden's Books at the Canton Center Mall which was the place were I learned to play Street Fighter... oh the memories! The issue was amazing with pictures for all of Ken's moves. So crazy to think that it was February 1992 and below is the final issue that will never happen for February 2009. Talk about full circle, with the world warriors on the cover.

The EGM/1Up staff have always been warm and welcoming and even invited us over during industry events in SF so it will be sad to know that will never happen again at that office. I can only hope they will regroup to start something even better with a new place to hang out in the not so distant future.

Best of luck to all of you and EGM will always be REMEMBERED!!!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-02T00:36:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to all those who read this thing from time to time and I hope you had an enjoyable holiday season with family and friends!!!

Well, I figured what time is better than now to update the blog. Sorry for leaving this thing vacant for such a long time but I was giving "life" a bit more of my time over the last few months. I had the best year ever, I got married, I got to work on a lot of different games (contract designer), read more than any year ever (shameful but true), traveled a lot, and ran two marathons. Getting married was a whirlwind adventure, 6 days in Italy for the ceremony and first reception, then we had 3 receptions on three consecutive weekends starting in Portland for my wife's family, then to Ohio for my family and finally in LA for friends. Tons of smiles and memories with everyone important our lives, this alone made it the best year so far and probably ever!

Recently have I started to play games again, catching up on everything I missed this year. I manned up and actually played a bunch of shooters of late which is hard for me because I get motion sick from FPS so I have play in small doses. BioShock was really amazing, CoD4 was cool but I suck so multiplayer was just a bunch of dying and being sad. Plowing through The Orange Box right now, done with Half Life 2 which I liked a lot, especially the dune buggy sections, I love road movies and want to make a road game one day. Portal was tough with the motion sickness but I made it through and loved the atmosphere and mood. The humor was endearing and the voice was perfect. Playing all the demos on PSN Store, most are awful and kill any interest in buying the game, word to the do not throw together a demo, instead "kill it" or don't do one at all! Oh yeah I am finally getting an Xbox 360, so late to the party on that one but better late than never. Tons to catch up on that system, but its not like I am missing too much since most of the big games are shooters which are not my #1 genre as I am sure you gathered from the above. The DS was a life saver on the road this year, between the Castlevania series and Soul Bubbles it made a lot of boring hotel stays pretty fun. I love games but there is not enough time in the day like there was when I was a kid so shorter games with tighter story and lots of variety are the key to the future of games, in my opinion... old man gamer in effect!

I played a lot of Street Fighter this year, its my roots in gaming even though I am not very good so it was good to get back to basics. Derek is always the king of knowing when some little get together is happen, I get calls like James Chen's tonight or let's go to Sunland to play on Vic's super gun setup... god bless Derek for being so connected to the community.

I was fortunate to get a lot of matches in with the team members at the studios I have been working with this year. Why do they all love Third Strike thought (never played it until this year), it baffles me but I am old school and love my ST too much I suppose... shrug. Oh yeah Short Short Super is growing quite nicely and that is crazy because I thought it would fail, goes to show what I know. So thank you to all the studios willing to risk time and money on me. Breaking out the Street Fighter for a little after hours cool down or lunch time battles was the icing on the cake for most of the design sessions!

Also I have gotten a few emails and saw a comment asking me about God of War 3. I am no longer with the team which I thought was known and clear from a previous post. Certain members still keep in touch and they say it is going well and will carry on the tradition. I look forward to playing it just like everyone else!

Lately I have been trying to figure out how to post about game design because seem to want that but its hard to write without getting all dry and boring. Most of the stuff on Gamasutra bores me and I do not want to write like that, I wish the lunch conversations and IM Chats I have with industry people could be translated into the blog. I suppose podcast would work but I am too lazy to do that, sorry :( Also I struggle with this weird thing called internet famous, its not my style but no knock to those who are or search it out. Then again I want talented devs to get the respect they deserve and media attention of any kind may be the best avenue to get that respect... but heck I would not even appear on the GoW making of videos (media shy). When I think about writing something this little internal conversation occurs in my brain that goes like this "who are you to write about this" but when someone asks me to write about a topic that does not happen, don't ask me why because I have not put any metal effort into figuring out the difference. I guess that is why I have such an issue with the blog it sort of goes against me wanting to hide in the shadows, oh well it will sort itself out in time like all things.

Well that's it, I updated and said nothing but let's hope this will get me posting more this year. If not yell at me, I respond to pressure!!!

Change, Please be Real!

2008-11-05T00:50:00.000-08:00

p.s. Derek, Maj, Victor and myself played Super Turbo during the election coverage, I played Blue Zangief all night for the Dems!

Social Software

2008-09-10T21:39:00.000-07:00

Oh it's been a long time since I have updated this thing, sorry about that to those of you that stop by from time to time. Life has been owning me up as of late with lots of consulting jobs that require travel, marathon training (portland marathon on october 5th), and getting married to the love of my life in less than 10 days.

So while I would love to write something worth reading, my mind has been mush so I am going to point you towards something that I have been thinking about lately anyhow. This is a great article trying to put its finger on the uses and future of social software design, Social Software! I really like the idea of user content being a beacon of the past. My soon to be wife says Facebook connected her with people from her school whom she rarely talked to during school. I asked her if its because much like family they are links to your past and you all share a common persepective to which she replied "maybe". Then only a few days later this article was sent to me by a developer friend, I love the way things are connected in this new information driven world!

I will not be updating until sometime in October when the wedding and marathon are over and life sort of returns to normal, now you can't blame me for wasting your time because I did not update... you know who you are!

My E3, Come Back!

2008-07-16T02:31:00.000-07:00

I am not sure what the deal is with E3 there days because I don’t buy this whole idea that E3 is too expensive to have it the old way. Last time I checked the industry has been growing each an every year and many reports state that the recession will have little to no effect. So what gives, it must be all that money being dished out to the teams actually making the games... nope. I mean come on putting on a show that gives the industry a week of positive media coverage must have its disadvantages, right? Well whatever the reason, the new show is asstacular… so indulge me in my fond memories of the real E3!

My E3 badges 1999-2006 (1998 is M.I.A.)

#10 – Crashing the Show
Making fake badges to gain entry in the hopes of landing a job in the industry. (It actually worked on both accounts)

#9 – Gotta Catch 'Em All
Battling people for Pokemon plush toys being fired out of a giant Pikachu cannon in Atlanta. I did not even know what a Pokemon was at that point but it was cool to catch them all! Oh yeah it was HOT as HELL in Atlanta but they did have Mo’ Better Chicken, great name, great food.

#8 – Kentia Hall a.k.a. Little Korea
I swear every crazy sprite based MMO known to mankind was shown in that hall at some point during the history of E3. Back in the day it used to be the best place to find free snacks but they too must have felt the money pinch because each year there was less and less snacks to be foraged.

#7 – The Pantry
If you don’t know then you missed out on the best place to eat during E3.

#6 – Exhibitor Badge
Oh man, you could go in early, stay late, go the day ahead of time… it was Glorious! Brady Games always took care of a few of us that used to write for them in the early days so thanks Christian, Leigh, and Ken! These people get extra props for bringing in Martin Leung to play any game theme under the sun.

#5 – Joel Jewett Face Plant
COMEDY, that is all I can say. Neversoft president drops into the half pipe at the Tony Hawk booth, slams face first into the ramp pulling off a jaw breaker grind. I heard there might have been alcohol involved but hats off to Joel for going all out. I wish there was a video of this because it puts the CliffyB chainsaw curtain entrance to shame!

#4 - Capcom Press Tournaments
Each year Capcom would hold these tournaments for the press but the usual suspects from the fighting game community would always sneak in and totally demolish the competition. I was fortunate to get into 3 of these, MvC2, SFEX2 and Power Stone. I lost to Alex Valle in SFEX2 and some crazy Cable shit in MvC2. Power Stone would be one of my lesser moments, as my first opponent was girl. All I remember was playing Gunrock, using the hammer and being boo’ed into the semifinals where I lost, sad day :(

#3 – The People, Friends, and Peers
I like playing a new game, talking to someone that worked on it. Talking games with old friends that have moved away to companies in other states or countries. Meeting people like Tim Schafer and him giving me the time of day, literally and figuratively.

#2 – X-men: The Next Dimension
The first game I worked on being shown at E3! There were these awful models at the booth dress like Storm, Psylocke, and Rogue, which we all know is code for this game is terrible. It was a proud moment to be part of the show for real but the game was really bad and I apologize if you bought it and hated it.

#1 – The Plush Carpet
The minute you hit the show floor there is this soft stuff under your feet making you feel all cozy. Sadly it is a horrible trick that soon wears off and leads to aching backs and sore legs at the end of the show. All that being said I miss that feeling under my feet so bring it back JERKS!

E3 is not always amazing, lots of headaches caused by loud music. Shitty crunch time leading up to the E3 demo always sucked. Traffic jams getting to Staples Center and the lame $20 dollar parking. Nintendo booth lines, they really have mastered the art of the queue. Smelly people! I am sure the list goes on and on but I want the old E3 back dammit!

I think Mouth from The Goonies said it best…
“Yeah, but you know what? This one, this one right here. This was my dream, my wish. And it didn't come true. So I'm taking it back. I'm taking them all back.”

Here are a few pictures from my very first E3 when none of us made games and life was a whole lot simpler. People were skinny back then!

Little Jimmy in Iowa

2008-07-07T00:44:00.000-07:00

I recently went back home to Ohio to see my cousin graduate from High School. The trip was a quick 4-day stay full of family and friends that felt long over due, there’s just something about Ohio in the summer.

Anyhow, there was this graduation party for my cousin and her boyfriend where they told me one of their friends was really excited that I was coming because he loved the God of War series. Now I am not one for attention of any sort so I was feeling a little awkward about the whole encounter, luckily there was this amazing graduation cake there which I had 5 to 12 pieces of to ease my mind. Then out of nowhere my cousin taps me on the shoulder and says, “there he is, be ready”. The kid wanders around for a good hour before coming over to say “hey, don’t want to take too much of your time but I love the games and thank you”. I am like hey thanks, no problem, glad you liked them etc… and he starts to walk away.

Suddenly I get this flash back to a late night on God of War where Dave, Derek, and I are working on some battle tuning and Dave gets all pissed shouting “Little Jimmy in Iowa will fucking hate this”. It’s late mind you and everyone is on edge and we are like what in the hell is he going on about now. After a few minutes we get it and remember what it is like to be playing a game that feels like it was made just for you, the little guy out there bored and looking to be entertained. Dave wanted God of War to fulfill the promise of being made just for you, not for designers who think they are cool and clever, but a game made for that monster hiding inside all of us. So that became a motto for the team and one that you will still hear at Santa Monica Studios. No doubt David Jaffe has instilled this idea into the people at Eat Sleep Play for his upcoming projects. Hell, I made sure to pass it along to the Ready at Dawn team when I started working with them on Chains of Olympus. I am sure Derek Daniels has passed it on to the many teams he comes in contact with over at Activision. Even our good friend David Sirlin has adopted the phrase in a few blog comment posts and other media. It’s that good and everyone can get behind it and run with it, think of it as Babel Fish for ideas that will resonate with the masses!

Side story – example: I remember when Dave first showed me all the things that were unlocked when you finished the game for the first time, I was like AWESOME, I love that so much is unlocked at once… he goes “Really, not too much” to which I reply no way! A few days later some decisions were made about this and that with regards to the unlocking which significantly decreased what was unlocked that bummed me out. Well, when Dave saw this he threw a fit (rightfully so in this case) and said “If this is not fixed we will not get that AWESOME face lighting up that Eric had when Little Jimmy in Iowa finishes the game for the first time”. Of course it was fixed and the tradition of unlocking lots on first finish was echoed in all other GoW titles.

Sometimes a simple motto is all the team needs to drive the soul of the game home no matter if it is a puzzle, boss fight, or the reward for finishing the game. I believe “Little Jimmy in Iowa” became a decision-making filter for the intangible and incompressible parts of the vision so the game felt cohesive and consistent.

Back to my meeting at the graduation party, as the kid was walking away, I go damn this is living breathing “Little Jimmy in Iowa” or in this case “Not so Little Josh in Ohio”. I stop Josh and say hey what are you going to school for to which he replies Computers or something. We start chatting about how he might be able to get into games and what to take in college. At the end I was smiling knowing that we hit the mark with our motto and it made me very proud to be a game designer. So this one is for you Josh, take care and hope to see you at the table designing games one day for “Little Jimmy in Iowa”!

p.s. “Little Jimmy in Iowa” used in conversation by Derek Daniels

Mr. Barlog: Haha - of course you didn't get everything that you wanted (and for the record neither did El Jeffe) it was an exaggeration to get a point across. Your job (or anyone doing your job) is to push the team to get the most out of them and to do what is best for the game. Your job's #1 priority should always be about the game (aka little jimmy in Iowa). The producer's job should be able to figure out how to get that done without killing the team.

p.p.s. Just think it could have been you Missouri, you’re in the middle too.

Update: Mega64

2008-06-11T00:52:00.000-07:00

THEY MAKE ME LAUGH!

Watch these please and thank you.

p.s. David Barlog is an amazing human being.

Difficulty Bandwagon

2008-05-19T21:18:00.000-07:00

It’s seems “difficulty” is a hot topic in games these days! A few sites I visit on the interwebs, Gamasutra and The Escapist, have posted articles on difficulty recently so I figured why not chime in on the topic.

Why do games have “difficulty settings” in the first place? Could it simply be blamed on the primordial soup that was the arcades of the 80’s designed to steal every last quarter known to mankind. Maybe it was something else all together like the gaming illuminati, you know the same people that make up TRC’s and killed Gunpei! Honestly, I cannot answer this but I think “difficulty” should be treated as a genre unto itself!!!

In my eyes Challenge vs. Entertainment is the dividing line for difficulty as a genre. The game can be made to punch the player in the face and split their skull or simply take them on a roller coaster ride with lots of ups and downs. Hardcore players seek these challenges yet complain about entertainment games being too easy which is sort of silly because if the game is good then who cares. I really don’t see people coming out of a summer blockbuster griping about the movie not challenging them on some level, they went to be entertained. Well price point makes gamers care but that is an entirely different can of worms, the same for game length, and the dreaded replay-ability argument.

Let’s face it, our audience is changing, getting older, growing broader so to me that is the easiest place to start. Who is the intended audience of the game?

Long ago people made games for people to toil over and were presented as challenges against this thing called the computer! Nowadays people make games for entertainment, exercise, learning, and to challenge not just the computer but each other. The only light at the end of the tunnel for a designer to follow through the darkness of difficulty is the intended audience.

I feel like most games fall down right out of the gate because they forget to ask the question, “Who is going to play this game”? Have you ever played that new kids game that is so not made for kids, I bet you have and I bet the publisher was scratching their head asking why the scores are so low and sales are shit. Well I bet they broke the golden rule and made a kids game for game designers, Ernest Adams should beat them with a Twinkie! Know your audience, play test with them not your designers or QA people that have been playing the same game for months or years on end!

Random tidbits that show my inability to write a cohesive blog post…

Lend a helping hand: (things I have seen work)
So what is a designer to do, well try to hide any sort of assistance so it is there but unobtrusive. I like things like pity health increases, this goes way back the 8-bit days; say you are about to die and a few random health packs fall out of an enemy. The reward should be just enough to keep the fight going but keep you in the danger zone, if you come out alive you have that nail biter but fuck yeah I kicked their ass feeling, sounds like the player will continue playing instead of powering down.

Boost the health just a little after “X” repeated deaths, just a small amount and continue doing it each death thereafter until a max replenish threshold is reached. Boss fights work so much better using this technique instead of making the player do more damage, the boss do less damage, or the boss become less active. The player may never even know this is going on but they are constantly in better shape each time they die.

Good check point and save system, not much to say other than use common sense and do not punish the player. It’s all about workload and how much work you want the player to do time and time again. Checkpoint after major events, cut scenes (yes watching a cut scene is work), stage transitions in long battles or boss fights, and long exploration sequences.

Beat your game on the normal setting not powering anything up and using the standard attacks. The God of War combat team always made it a point to beat the game on normal mode using only the square combo and the required Context Sensitive moves, no evades, no blocking, no magic, no nothing. If you can do this then it is safe to say most people can do it with all the other tools you have given them.

Tune easy mode to be seriously easy, it should be a full on change of thinking not some 15% reduction in the difficulty values. Change the damage the player takes, inflicts, increase gain of all commerce, add more hints and messages, and slow down the moment-to-moment action whenever possible. I called it “Girlfriend mode”, not meant to be derogatory just a fact that my girlfriend could not get past the opening level on normal without dying 20 times but on easy only died 2 times.

Understand the “Threshold of Fun”! Derek and I always had this idea that if you die 5 times in an area or lose 5 matches in any game straight, that is the “Threshold of Fun”, the point where it is no longer fun at all. Sure it’s not science but when someone said something was not fun and we saw they died 8 times well we tuned it so they died 5 times and it was fun all of a sudden… shrug.

Franchise:
Believe it or not companies make games to make money, SURPRISE! So why in the hell do they want to make hard games that limit the audience or worse make the game so hard those who did buy the game cannot finish it. Don’t they want you coming back for the next installment? Most people will argue that great games bring people back regardless of difficulty and I agree with that but finishing a game counts towards the game being great! Beyond the fact that lots of people spent lots of time making a whole game not just part of a game, there is no benefit in not allowing the player to complete the game. Imagine if people went to see Lord of the Rings and it was it was a silent movie in black and white, seems difficult for most people to watch, I wonder if those people would come back for the next two movies. Obviously this all breaks down with competitive games but again that is an entirely different subject.

Rants:
I hate Dynamic Difficult Adjustment (DDA)!!! If I want to play on easy then it better damn well be easy, not switch invisibly to hard just because I am kicking ass on easy. Conversely if I sign up for ass kicking hard mode then don’t pander to me when I am not getting it, its not going to help me learn anything. People used to get pissed at the “Do you want to switch to Easy Mode” menu in God of War because they felt insulted but it was usual a hardcore player that hated the menu. I think the menu helped a lot more people finish the game even if they are not willing to admit they used it, but when you are having fun alone does it really matter you took at step back, of course not!

WTF is with leveling creatures to always be near my level, yes Puzzle Quest I mean you… I hear Oblivion does this too but I did not play it. If this is going to happen why even have leveling, I never feel powerful because of my level ups since the enemies keep pace. Thank goodness you can turn this off in Puzzle Quest but damn it I was halfway through by the time I saw that option, JERKS!

Well I started off with good intentions and ended up cursing and calling people jerks (Sorry Puzzle Quest makers), it happens.

Thanks for reading!

Finally Home

2008-05-08T00:53:00.000-07:00

What a whirlwind tour it has been over the last few weeks, I have only been home for a total 48 hours since April 17th! The new business is keeping me very busy which is a good thing but all this travel is kicking my butt. I wish it was possible to talk about all the projects I am associated with but NDA's are a plenty so mums the word for now.

Getting out to visit a lot of different companies is amazing. I am learning a lot while giving what I can only hope is a lot back. While that is all fine and well, dammit I miss working with my friends that I grew up with in this industry, namely Derek and Cory but hopefully we can all circle back around later in our careers, at least I hope so...

Oh I went to this fun design night called Pecha Kucha, which is rough japanese for "chit-chat" A bunch of people in design related fields meet up and give presentations on all kinds of topics like city planning and graphic design. The killer part is the format, each presenter has 20 slides and talks about each one for 20 seconds. What I really like about this is that all the concepts are quite digestible and if the topic is not something you are into it only lasts 6:40 so no big deal. The night also starts at 20:20, 8:20 for us non euro/military people but the 20:20 obviously relates to the presentation format. I think there was about 20 presenters as well but we did not stay for the entire night. Los Angeles has one this sunday so maybe check it out if it's your thing, I'd be going but it's back on an airplane again... sad day.

Random other tid-bits...

SEA COWBOYS! If you have not read this story get busy now! It's like the A-team meets Deadliest Catch meets Armegeddon, do I really have to sell this any harder?

No More Heroes was really fun even though the open world parts were not so great minus dumpster diving. Dumpster diving was the best use of a chest system in a modern city layout ever in my opinion. The Wii was happy for two days because I actually used it. I'll be there day one for the Suda-51 / Kojima team up that is in the works, Project S?

I bought an iMac! The first week was a nightmare since the last time I used a mac was Apple IIE in grade school. Once I got over all that I love how everything sort of works together and falls into place. An iBook is in my future since traveling is not going to let up. But seriously why does the "End key" always go the bottom instead of the end of the line, I will never get used to that EVER!

I have yet to see Iron Man, this bums me out :(

GTA4 came out and I have yet to buy it, I most definitely fall into this "Category"

Finally God of War: Chains of Olympus is the #1 PSP game of all time at the moment, let's celebrate with a little Zero Punctuation Review!

p.s. I will try to update more often, if I lag too much yell at me in the comments please and thank you!

From a land down under

2008-03-16T00:43:00.000-07:00

Fourteen hours on a plane was only made possible with some Puzzle Quest on the DS and a whole row to myself to lay down and pseudo sleep. Boy was it worth it, Sydney is beautiful and quite walk-able which is something I dislike about sprawling Los Angeles. I think running the LA Marathon is the only time I will see so much of Los Angeles on foot. Anyhow, got another stamp in the passport and well on my way to knocking out all the places I want to see in the world. Next up Italy again for the wedding and hopefully Greece and Egypt in the near future. Well enough about travel since most people come here to read something video game related.

Honestly I am way too tired to talk about any of that so I am going to leave myself a reminder note here to force myself to post about why I think books and games have more in common than movies and games and why I think Orisinal is the equivalent of poetry. On second thought it's not all that deep so I am going to ramble on about it now. To preface, this is how I watch a movie... no talking if at all possible, no bathrooms breaks, no interruptions period unless I have already seen it and even then this annoys me with the exception of great quotable comedies with a group of friends after repeat viewings.

A book can be read at any pace and a movie is watched at the pace of the director. A game no matter if it is a board game or video game is played at its own pace. Often I will re-read a page or even chapter of a book multiple times to soak it all in, games tend to do a similar thing with re-spawning battles or repeating events upon death... where a film keeps on going with or without you.

NOTE:
I suppose it can be argued that some games impose a timer such as speed chess or sporting events but in games timers are usually legacy design from the early days and arcades, now a day it is rare to find a game that is shackle by a timer. Similarly one could argue movies can be controlled with rewind and scene selection but who really enjoys a movie with those options?

The reality is that enjoying something at your own pace is a very important distinction when consuming and enjoying entertainment. Books and games allow a high level of control when it comes to the experience where movies offer a much lower level of control, yet both can stir emotions and entertain. At the end of the day it’s not a matter of one being better than the other but a matter of how much control a person has over the experience.

Like I said this is not all that well thought out and requires a lot more research but it has always been on my mind and a talk with a good friend brought it back into focus during my trip. Hopefully I will get some time to think about it more and expand this idea because I think there is a lot to be learned from books and how they are crafted that we sometimes miss out on because of the obvious relationship games share with movies on the visual and audible fronts. Perhaps games can be the harmonious hybrid of the two mediums? Drop me a line if you have thoughts, conversation is wanted on this topic.

Well based on this scatterbrain idea I hope you can see why the games over at Orisinal might be the poetry of our world. Winterbells always brought this idea home to me for some reason!

p.s. I see a lot chapters in games and books have a lot of chapters!

The Battle of Marathon

2008-02-29T10:40:00.000-08:00

Kratos is coming to the small screen in a big way come March and I had a little something to do with it as part of my new venture Short Short Super! I formed Short Short Super back in October 2007 with the intention of working as a design consultant and my first client was Ready At Dawn on God of War: Chains of Olympus. It always feels great to ship a game but this one was a little more special since it was the first along my new path in the video game industry. Big thanks to Ru Weerasuriya, Eric Koch, and Allan Becker for putting their heads together to make this happen.

The only thing better than finishing my first consultant gig would be great reviews and that is the case with a current average of 9.4! Perhaps this will help my client list grow but hopefully not too much, I do enjoy a little sleep now and again…

Congratulations to everyone at Ready At Dawn on an amazing game and continuing the God of War franchise, Dana, Mike B, Mike D, Max a.k.a. Code Bug, Tony, Derek, Phil, Jeremy a.k.a. Captain Cuddlesworth, Garret, Jerome, Carlo, Marc, Ru, Melissa, Jo, Nathan, John, Rachid, and everyone else I am forgetting, thanks for making my time down there amazing and good luck on the next great thing from RAD!

All while I was working on GoW:CoO, I was training for the Los Angeles Marathon. So each night after tucking Kratos and pals into bed I would be running the streets of Irvine at around midnight to get in my training miles. Oddly enough the city of Marathon is represented in the game so I had Marathon on the brain day and night. Well my fiancée and I will run 26.2 miles of Los Angeles City in our own little Battle of Marathon at 8:15am this Sunday!

Oh yeah GDC happened last week as well and it was my first time going because I am usually knee deep in the development process. Most of the time I hung out with people that I have not seen in a long time so that was cool but I was cheap and did not attend the sessions so I guess I missed out on the real GDC experience, maybe next year.

Derek and I got some one on one time with SF4 and that was pretty cool, even got to speak to Ono-san via translator/producer extraordinaire Ben Judd. We told Ono-san how Kratos has a lot of Street Fighter in him and he laughed wildly then said something like “Capcom needs better lawyers” which made us all laugh. The game is beautiful in motion and promises to bring back what has been long lost. I played a lot of Zangief and that was my GDC highlight!

Derek playing Ono-san, nice photo Seth!

Citizen Cupcake was my fuel while running the Embarcadero at midnight, marathon training never ends. Seriously I had so many cupcakes up there the girl remembered me and even gave me some on the house to bring back to April the last night of GDC. When in the Bay go eat some cupcakes, lemon was my favorite!

And the winner is...

2008-02-15T11:19:00.000-08:00

Good job Will!

So it's official no one reads this thing, not like that was a big surprise! Due to that sad fact the judging was quite simple because there was a single entry.

Valentine's Day Contest!

2008-02-13T20:11:00.000-08:00

Ok kids here is your chance to win a limited edition God of War: Chains of Olympus T-Shirt (pics below for the impatient) made exclusively for the Ready At Dawn team members, well at least they told me that anyhow. The guys were kind enough to give me one for my help on the game but it is a little too big for me so I figured what the hell let someone win it!

What does it take to win you might be wondering, well it is simply. Create a Valentine's Day Card using God of War as the theme. The Card must be in JPEG format and must be received by 11:59pm PST on Thursday February 14th. You can enter as many times as you wish!

Send all entries to iheartkratos@gmail.com

The judging panel will be myself and a signed glamour shot of Cory Barlog!

The winner will be announced around 11am PST on Friday February 15th.

I know the time frame is short so no complaining because we all know you slackers work best when under pressure. Plus think about it you can use the card to hand out to those loved ones in your life as well, it is a gift that keeps giving. Good Luck!

DISCLAIMER: The contest has no affiliation with SCEA or Ready At Dawn Studios.

p.s. click pictures to make them all big and stuff...

Fight IV Your Right...

2008-01-22T01:33:00.000-08:00

Mass Effect is getting a lot of press lately for some wild sex stuff! Fox News even decided to take time away from the coverage of Britney to make sure America was aware of this new threat. Our man in the trenches was Geoff Keighley and he put up "the good fight" so thanks for the effort Geoff even though you got closed out (check out the showdown here). Just think of this as practice for the real battles on the horizon with GTA:4.

Dear GTA:4,

Good Luck!

best,
e

p.s. I almost forgot about you RE5, extra good luck to you sirs!

p.p.s. I feel this is still true, sadly!

Combat Cancelled

2008-01-17T02:44:00.000-08:00

Normally I would not write this kind of article but since it is a new year and was sort of prompted by some God of War questions in the past and recently on Derek’s blog here I am. A lot of questions have always swirled around some of the attacks Kratos has in his arsenal, namely the L1+ Button special moves. The questions usually stem from the inability to “Cancel” these moves thus rendering them useless so to speak. Instead of just defending those moves I am going to examine the entire concept of move cancelling from its early days in fighting games to its cross pollination with action adventure games.

Let’s start with the grand daddy of them all Street Fighter 2: World Warrior. There is a legend that one day during early tests of this game out in California a guy named Tomo Ohira was destroying people in the game with some crazy technique where he could link certain moves together that normally could not be linked together, thus creating a combo by canceling! Ok so I was a kid in Ohio when I heard this so of course I believed it because Tomo Ohira was the best American Street Fighter player at the time. However, later I learned that this was a “bug” in the game and known by the development team in Japan but they thought it was too hard to execute to be useful so they left it in the game. Well it happens that the “bug” was the birth of the Cancel and Combo! The best example is roundhouse sweep cancel to fireball with Ryu, which I view as the catalyst for many other Street Fighter cornerstones such as zoning and footsies. So you get the point Street Fighter started it all and I just wanted to share some history so now onto how this affects action adventure games.

First let’s define a cancel just so we are all clear; a cancel is the ability to end one animation early by beginning another animation when the user manipulates of a series of branches in an animation tree through inputs on the controller, talk about clinical. Without diving into all the nuts and bolts of a combat system I am going to breakdown cancels by type and method. Cancel types fall into 2 core groups; “Partial Cancel” and “Complete Cancel”.

A “Partial Cancel” allows an animation to be canceled at specific windows during the animation. The two most common conditions for a “Partial Cancel” are pre-hit frame (the animation can be cancelled any time before the first frame of the hit) and post-hit frame (the animation can be cancelled any time after the last frame of the hit).

A “Complete Cancel” allows an animation to be cancelled at anytime during the animation. Of course I am generalizing and there are special nuances that exist in certain games but for the most part these conditions are used 99% of the time.

The methods I am going to cover are the ones that account for the bulk of all games and they are "Buffer" and "Instant".

The "Buffer" method stores and executes the user’s command when the cancel window is valid. The "Buffer" method in a well-designed game can be cancelled itself with other commands before the cancel window is valid to ensure the highest quality of responsiveness.

The "Instant" method accepts and executes the user’s command on the frame of input when the cancel window is valid. The "Instant" method allows the player to delay the timing which adds to the overall responsiveness of the game.

Now for an example: We have an animation called “Square01” that is played when we press the Square button, the animation is 60 frames long and has a hit frame window from frame 15 to frame 20. (see the pseudo combat scripting below)

//60 frames
Animation = Square01

//hit frames
On = 15;
Off = 20;

//attack cancel
Anim = Square02; Button = Square; On = 0; Off = 21; Method = Buffer;
Anim = Square02; Button = Square; On = 21; Off = 60; Method = Instant;

//block cancel
Anim = Block; Button = L1; On = 0; Off = 60; Method = Instant;

What does all that mean you might be asking yourself? Notice the On/Off parameters, these are frame values and determine the range of the cancel window. The method parameter assigns the type of cancel, see the definitions above if you have forgotten already. We can now determine that “Square01” can never be cancelled Pre-hit frame with the square button since the frame range is 0-21, instead the square button can be buffered until Post-hit frame 21. We can also determine that “Square01” can be instantly cancelled at anytime Post-hit frame since the frame range is 21-60. It also says that the L1 button can cancel “Square01” instantly at anytime thus making it a Complete Cancel since the frame range is 0-60. If this made any sense at all, now imagine doing this for every possible animation a character has in their arsenal and how they relate to gameplay systems such as parry, block, counter, walk, run, jump, double jump, magic, throw, reactions, etc… To give you a little perspective, Kratos had roughly 4000 cancel branches in God of War 2 with many more parameters to be tweaked per cancel branch.

Bored yet? I promise to stop being technical right now!

What can a well-implemented cancel system add to a game? First off it usually determines if a game has that lagged out feel or is crisp and super responsive. From a defensive point of view it creates that feeling of a best offense is a great defense. The player can just bang with the enemies but guard cancel to generate new holes in the enemy’s game. Guard canceling in Soul Calibur is super fun because it has Pre-hit frame canceling only which allows the player to fake attacks creating a whole new layer of mind games. Street Fighter 3 and Marvel Series make great use of super move cancels, which looks flashy in the traditional Capcom vein while promoting heavy offensive style gameplay. Also you might note that cancels are so good in some games that they actually require meter to perform like in the Guilty Gear series. It's almost impossible to factor all the changes one type of cancel system can have on a game, one such case is CvS2 and the infamous "Roll Cancel" where certain moves can become invincible based on a cancel bug, talk about an oops. Ultimately though it comes down to fun vs. abusiveness but mostly a great cancel system equals depth and allows the player to be super creative which helps increase the fun and sense of achievement.

Here some thoughts on the top three games in the action adventure genre, in no particular order Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry, and God of War. Placing the game I worked on for nearly 4 years in the top three will surely drum up some interesting comments, can’t wait… this is why I do not write about the games I work on if at all possible.

Ninja Gaiden is very strict when it comes to canceling so strict in fact that not a single animation that I am aware of can be canceled Pre-hit frame. I feel this is a great rule when trying to build a solid foundation for the combat gameplay but also adds to the difficulty. The player knows when they press a button to attack it must complete its hit frame before another animation can take place. Here is a funny thing about that rule, it is so true that the player cannot even pause the game because they could swap weapons and cancel before the hit, don’t believe me try it out. The game is made to be hardcore and for the hardcore so they use rules that help establish a fair play field if the player is willing to learn the system to the point of flawless execution. I applaud Itagaki and Team Ninja for their effort and contribution to the genre!

Devil May Cry follows many of the same rules that Ninja Gaiden does but in true Capcom fashion they have to drop the style bomb all over rules and add in some broken stuff just for fun! The main cancel system that drives DMC is the alteration between Melee and Projectile attacks. I believe that all Melee attacks are all Post-hit frame cancels and the Projectile attacks are governed by the rate of fire. Since there are between 5-6 Melee and Projectile weapons the combinations create for quite the learning curve and when you add in the styles the possibilities are staggering. Depth is the result but in a much more chaotic and flashy manner then the technical presentation found in Ninja Gaiden. Nevertheless there is no doubt that DMC is an acquired taste from the dark moody art to wise cracking cocky Dante himself but when you get it, you get it and the rabid fans for this series will always let you know they get it!

God of War unlike the other two games allows for many Pre-hit frame cancels and incorporates several of the methods found in the other two games. The main difference is that it is not trying to be a hardcore game from neither a technical nor flashy point of view. It’s just smash and kill fun with some goodies tossed in under the hood for the fans of the other games that gave us a shot while they waited for the next installment of Ryu’s or Dante’s saga. The rules for canceling are all over the place but for good reason, our intended audience does not want to learn the techniques, they just want the game to play the way they think it should because combat is not the only focus unlike the other two games.

So what about the L1+Button specials and why they cannot be cancelled? The moves in question are by far the strongest damage inflicting attacks Kratos has that stem from a simple button command, they hit many creatures at once in most cases, leave the creature in a vulnerable state, or in some cases both. The moves also serve as a little flash and make beginners feel really powerful when they see the blades spinning all over the place. Like I said before the other games only have Post-hit frame canceling and use this to teach the player, watch before you attack. God of War allows almost all of the basic attacks be cancelled anywhere including Pre-hit frame to make life easier on the player. The L1+Button specials possess enormous damage potential in certain situations and thus are not able to be cancelled until Post-hit frame for balance reasons (infinite lock down loops mostly). Moreover for novice players they are used to teach the concept of risk vs. reward without placing this burden on the basic combat which would make the game much harder for the average player. I know this can be argued from many different angles with regards to balancing but trust me I have heard them all and this was the decision we made but feel free to tell me how foolish we were anyhow.

At the end of the day you have to look at your intended audience and I think we captured our audience the best we could. To those that were left upset and disappointed because of 4 little moves in the game that cannot be cancelled earlier then I am sorry you missed a much greater experience.

It’s easy to say God of War is flawed and this that and the other but the fact remains that it is the only American action adventure game to ever get the attention of the Japanese. I grew up playing their games and wanted to make a game that felt like a Japanese game but played balls out like an American movie and God of War allowed me to do that. It is not perfect but it spoke to some people and that is all we can hope for as game developers.

I know one thing for sure increasing the amount of canceling in a game decreases the possibility of the game being cancelled!

Please feel free to ask any questions in the comments and I will try to answer promptly!

Thanks!

p.s. God of War has some serious fun with cancels, press square once then try any of the following if you don’t believe me.

Walk (Navigation) = Post-hit frame
Jump = Pre-hit frame
Roll (Evade) = Pre-hit frame
Magic = Pre-hit frame
Throw = Pre-hit frame
Guard (Parry / Block) = Pre-hit frame
Weapon Swap = Post-hit frame

For the Record!!!

2007-11-09T01:04:00.000-08:00

I have NOT quit the gaming industry!

Since the news of Cory Barlog leaving Sony has spread a lot of speculation has been going around, mostly about Cory. Yet somehow a rumor has started that I have completely quit the gaming industry. I have received quite a few emails, IM’s and even a few phone calls about this but I can assure you this is FALSE.

What is true is that I left SCEA Santa Monica Studios on Oct.1st 2007. Perhaps this is where the confusion occurred. Maybe I should have been more vocal about my departure to avoid such confusion but the people that needed to know, knew and that was good enough for me.

My time at Sony allowed me the chance to work on something truly great with an amazing team comprised of talented individuals. The best thing about it was we struck gold not once but twice so I have no doubts that they will continue to succeed in the future! It was an honor to design and build Kratos for the last 4 years but I passed the blades onto a more than capable designer. His name is Jason McDonald and he will be surrounded by one of the best animation teams in the biz along with the programming might of Magnus Danielsson and Fabrice Odero. Have no fear, Kratos will return with a vengeance that has never been seen before! The rest of the team will kick ass as only they can, best of luck to you all and end it with a bang!

A new career path is in sight and it can only be described as “The smartest thing I ever do or the dumbest thing I ever do” which was the same thing I said when I moved to California to start my career in video games instead of finishing college. Now that I think about it that is so cliché. I mean all choices could be summed up as such but I like the sound of it and since history sometimes repeats itself, here’s to hoping lightning strikes twice else there is that flower shop I always dreamt about.

They say Kratos was sad “that day” but I was just as sad, here’s to you old friend…

Flash Game of the Month: October

2007-11-04T20:14:00.000-08:00

The flash game of the month is called Yin Yang from MTV games, WTF?!? I guess they have turned to games since Britney keeps letting them down or something like that…

Anyhow the game is kind of like Lost Vikings gameplay meets Spy vs. Spy art style creating quite the enjoyable experience. The game is pretty simple at face value since the goal is to get each character to his checkered flag by switching back and forth between them to open the path to the flag. Seems simple enough until the screen starts rotating around as you keep track of the frame of reference which is based on either black or white. It was fun to discover how the two colors change the way the characters interact thereafter so give is a try but be prepared for a little frustration and some excellent “V8 moments”!

Good Luck and Have Fun!

BAFTA Props!

2007-10-29T23:09:00.000-07:00

Quick update to give props to my old teammates for kicking ass and taking names at the BAFTA’s! God of War 2 was nominated for 5 awards and managed to bring home two wins for Santa Monica Studios. It was cool to see that the awards were represented by actual names but everyone knows that it takes the whole team to create greatness!

Cory Barlog, David Jaffe, and Marianne Krawczyk brought home Best Story and Character while Tim Moss and Christer Ericson brought home Best Technical Achievement. It was an honor to work in the trenches with these stars and the rest of the peeps over at Santa Monica Studios, best of luck in the future to all of you!

If you want to see the rest of the nominees and winners click the link “BAFTA”

I was a little disappointed that we were not up for Best Gameplay being a gameplay designer but I guess there is only so much room for the God of War, maybe next time… shrug. Wii Tennis is the business according to my girlfriend and her damn super serve, the Brits agreed!

home for awhile...

2007-10-05T22:45:00.000-07:00

Flash Game of the Month: September

2007-10-04T00:43:00.000-07:00

The flash game of the month is the latest in the Grow Series entitled Grow Island!

I hesitate to call this a game because it does not seem to have any real logic.Perhaps I am missing something here and there is a way to look at the elements of the system and logically deduce the order but in all honesty I believe that to be false. The game should be called "Blind Decision Tree". So why play, I mean interact with this thing at all? Well think of it as a visual reward based on trial and error, maybe you are one of those "I need to know what happens" types, or better yet it might just be a time waster... shrug. At any rate I love these little “experiences” they remind me that the journey is sometimes more important than the destination. Ok I did just say that straight faced but I had to justify my time spent on this somehow, right?

The positives are pretty simple here; the animations are terrific, clever and at times funny. The wonder of how all the elements in the system relate and react to each other have you saying “just one more try”. It is a one-button design accessible to all users which seems to be a trend these days hence me bringing it up at all. The only negatives I can see are sometimes it takes a long time for all the level up reactions to take place thus dragging out the experience. Oh yeah, I did mention the game is based on trial and error so no bitching and moaning in the comments section. As if anyone other than Christer will comment.

spoiler alert: (there are 2 correct paths)

For more Grow Games check out this amazing Wikipedia – Grow Games page for links to the past entries in this series. My personal favorite is the RPG!

Good Luck and Have Fun!

Flash Game of the Month: August

2007-09-05T00:27:00.000-07:00

The flash game of the month is Tactical Assassin: fun, Fun, FUN!

The first thing that stood out to me when playing this game is how good the presentation is overall. It feels like Metal Gear with the ambient sound and life like sniper rifle round discharge, hell I do not even know if that is the sound a sniper rifle makes for sure but it sounds incredible. The user interface and music also have a Metal Gear vibe, especially the music that is ripped directly from MGS, which I noticed in the credits later. The stolen presentation elements brings me to an important point about this game, by stealing those elements it probably allowed the creator to elevate the core game elements to another level… this is smart design, kudos for focusing efforts on the mission briefs and assassination scenarios and lifting the rest from games that got it right already.

I know I might be the only person out there that enjoyed word problems in math class or on silly standardized tests but I LOVE THE USE OF THEM IN THIS GAME! The mission briefs are so amazing because they explain to you slowly what you need to do while telling a bit of story and setting up the mood of the hit. The briefs get you thinking and out of that guns blazing mindset most players get into when they get a virtual gun in their hands. The creator penalizes this behavior even more be allowing the player to skip the brief and just shoot blindly which almost certainly results in failure. After failing the brief is read and read thoroughly ensuring that almost all players will have the same experience at some point. The brief has some other nice design touches such as multiple objectives so the player is again taken away from the single-track mindset, again very clever and maintains the theme of the game, good job! The change of location and weapon per chapter was a nice tough plus stick figure art is awesome too!

Good Luck and Have Fun!

G-Phoria 2007 Results!!!

2007-08-09T01:38:00.000-07:00

Ok, we lost and more importantly Kratos lost, infinitely even more importantly Sony lost and may have to kill another goat to satiate Kratos. Cliffy B and company over at Epic destroyed us; we did not win a single award, sad day. Perhaps we will come out of this much like Al Gore did when he lost to Bush, we can release games about mother earth and how she is not happy with what is happening to her, and then we will be Heroes unlike those warmongers that brought you Gears of War! In all seriousness though, congrats to Gears and the guys/gals that put that game together, hell congrats to all the winners and remember your youth!

In other political news, I was floored when I saw a video game designer on The Colbert Report tonight. Previously I've talked about this happening and it finally did, so one small step for Ian Bogost, one giant leap for the games industry! Are we in the wobbly stage between crawling and walking, if so will Conan and Leno catch us before we fall? Jaffe clean up your language because you and fruit cake lady might be sitting next to each other in the near future or one can dream a little dream.

Check out the interview below and watch carefully as Colbert nearly swoons when he gazes upon the power of the purple tie…

Also Mr. Bogost is quite the busy man on the “internets” and his work can be found here, here, and here.

Flash Game of the Month: July

2007-07-31T00:47:00.000-07:00

The game of the month comes to us courtesy of a Casual Game Design Competition. The winner was Wouter Visser's Gimme Friction Baby!

The circles obey a specific growth factor which is quite ingenious and kept me playing for much longer than I should have. The game has a certain minimalist charm with its monochrome color scheme and blocky numerics. The music was very fitting and added to the overall feeling of the game's "thinking gameplay". At first the time it takes for a shot fired to stop was annoying but after time I actually enjoyed watching its movements until completion but for most I bet it will bore them to the point of quitting.

A great example of a game that is roughly built around Newton's Laws of Motion or you can think of it as a crazy cross between breakout and billiards... either way remember to watch the circle grow because how they grow is almost the entire game.

My best was 19!

Good Luck and Have Fun!

G-Phoria 2007 Voting!!!

2007-07-16T01:34:00.000-07:00

Ok here is the deal, God of War 2 is up for 4 Awards this year so cast some votes for Kratos and the crew that brought him home to you, please and thank you!

The voting links are here...
Game of the Year
Best Action Game
Best Voiceover
Best Soundtrack

Seriously go vote because last time we were there Johnny Hawkins was swimming in ladies and since he broke his leg during the making of God of War 2 it's the least the fans can do... I mean look at the smile on this kid's face. Cliffy B never came into work to with a broken leg to finish building and scripting levels so vote now and get Johnny Hawkins snuggling with porn stars again, you know it's the Right Thing To Do!

A Link to my childhood...

2007-07-12T21:03:00.000-07:00

I love Zelda! There I said, the game has always held a special place in my heart and always will no matter what. The game has this special magic! Even when it is bad it always finds a way to redeem itself. So for all you Zelda fans out there you owe to yourselves to watch this History of Zelda! Get busy and leave a comment with your favorite Zelda moment because I love me some NOSTALGIA!

I loved the part in A Link to the Past when you have to blow a hole in the ceiling to let the light shine down so you could unveil the fake princess, Classic Zelda moment!

It's nice to know even the mighty creators of Zelda admit making video games is not easy, very comforting when feeling a little lost after finishing an epic game...

Coins Detected in Pocket

2007-06-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

Last night was one of those nights that really only happens in LA and actually makes me like living here. A few friends in the industry go together to check out this arcade game documentary called Chasing Ghosts at the LA Film Festival in Westwood! The movie was pretty good overall and in true film festival tradition the Director, Producer, and a few of the players from the movie were there for QA after the showing. The bummer was that most people asked them boring questions like what kind of camera they shot the movie with and how long things took but then Walter Day launched was asked a question that made up for all the boring ones. I do not even remember the actual question he was asked but Walter stepped up to the mic and launched into something that has been on my mind for quite some time, the importance of Video Game History preservation and that is exactly what the film is if nothing else no matter what.

The film just took me back to a time where I was asking for some quarters everywhere I went, it did not matter if it was Zayer’s, Gold Circle, or Dairy Mart because any establishment of any salt had some kind of video game. I mean those were the days and I was only like 6 or 7 during the bulk of the time explored in the film but I remembered it all. But while I was just teething in gaming years these guys were out destroying games, setting insane high scores, getting t-shirts made, and having groupies, YES GROUPIES as evident by the hickey on Billy Mitchell’s neck, which lead to him to become “Video Game Player of the Century”. They even had contracts that addressed groupies, true rock stars of the moment. However like all good things it came to an end which one player said began with the ability to continue games by simply putting another quarter in the machine, that just shows how HARDCORE these guys were… they did not blame home gaming consoles they blame the ability to continue your game.

As for the film as a whole, I think it was pretty good as a whole but at times it made me feel like the line of showing people lives and making fun of them was crossed, in the films defense these guys are all a bit eccentric so it was inevitable. I think one of the best parts in the movie was a small reflections montage of the players watching video tape of themselves back in the early 1980’s and seeing there reactions, this was pure genius! It was pretty amazing that the film idea stemmed from one picture taken of all the players that Life Magazine ran, which was a major thread throughout the entire film. Again it was this little bit of history that could have been forgotten but instead triggered an entire movie that in the words of Walter Day himself “Might be the first real historical film about the video games”… It was a nostalgic night filled with great conversations before and after the movie with my gaming friends that I have known, made games with, and played games with for the last decade or even longer… so if the film gets anymore dates check it out!!!

It’s a shame this little gem never had a full release since it speaks to more of my arcade generation and a bunch of my friends are in the film or made the film. Perhaps in the wake of Chasing Ghosts and the upcoming The King of Kong enough interest will merit the release of Bang the Machine. Until then here is a little slice of that film for you to get behind and maybe it can finally find a home so we can all enjoy it!

Honda - When things just work...

2007-05-22T23:23:00.001-07:00

I love this not only because it is a Rube Goldberg Machine but also is a great metaphor for game development sometimes. When you have this idea that is made of a million unknowns and then some how you string it altogether to create a boss battle or puzzle setup, the feeling is pretty much like the what you see in this ad. The part the player never gets to see is the failed attempt after failed attempt at trying to get these complex gameplay sequences working. Anyhow I found this neat and relative to what we do on so many levels I just had to put the video up… well ok I was testing to see how to put a video up but this was sort of relevant?!?

The story behind this ad is awesome so give it a read because it really brings home the trial and error experience of working on a game production. It sounds like they had a lot of “Show Stopper” bugs during the development of this commercial… I hate when a producer walks over to my desk with one of those bugs, HATE IT!

God of War on a Train!

2007-05-16T23:48:00.000-07:00

So while I was on my vacation in Spain we were riding this train from one city to the next and this guy was reading a gaming magazine… Just as he opens past the inside over there is Kratos, I cannot seem to get away from him. It’s been three long years of working on Kratos day in and day out trying to get him feeling right and playing solid so seeing him on a train in a foreign country was sort of my personal reward for all the long hours. My deepest thanks go out to David Jaffe and Cory Barlog for trusting me to not fuck up the main character in their masterpieces!

Spain was an amazing trip! We visited Barcelona, Bilbao, Valencia, San Sebastian, and Madrid. I celebrated my 30th birthday at the Guggenheim with my girlfriend who wore her Frank Gehry earrings for the occasion, so that was quite a special day. We also visited the Prado Museo and Reina Sofia Museo in Madrid, the Guernica by Pablo Picasso was an amazing site to see in person. The Sagrada Familia was another amazing site which I could not help but snap a crap load of photos for our art team, the place was that inspirational. The Mediterranean Sea was beautiful but I got a little sunburn that day and was called Lobster Man for about 2 days after that by my girlfriend. Other highlights included much eating of gelats (gelato) and aquarius this crazy gatorade type stuff that was quite delicious. Since my sleeping schedule was a little messed up I played a lot of DS, which has an amazing battery life thankfully… Lost in Blue was the main focus and relevant since everything was sort of foreign to me, especially food menus in Spanish. So that was my trip in a nutshell, I highly recommend the visit if you have the time and means, it was SO CHOICE!

The Flash Game of the Week was really fun but I have decided to only do once a month so that I do not become lazy and only update the blog with flash games every week. Here is the last one until June at which point I will begin the once a month Flash Game Update… Sorry this one is a little tough to figure out since it is in Japanese but I had fun with it all the same. If this game had more levels and a gentler learning curve I might play it for hours. Go play PLUPON now!

Good Luck and Have Fun!

Flash Game of the Week: 04/30/07

2007-04-30T09:31:00.000-07:00

The game this week is The Last Stand! It’s a zombie survival game which is one of my favorite genres for both films and games. The game pits you (a lone survivor?) against the ensuing mob of undead; the only thing separating you from them is a shabby barrier and your trusty handgun with unlimited ammo. Are you lucky enough to make it through the night?

The game is fairly simple because all you can do is move around inside your barrier and shoot the zombies before they destroy your barrier and eat your brains shortly after. The Zombies come in the form of average zombies, fat zombies, running zombies, and dog zombie. The gun mechanics are pretty straight forward and create a spinning plate scenario where you are firing, moving to a new location under attack, and reloading the weapon. Once you make it through the night you get points to spend on one of three categories to prepare for the looming night: repair the barrier, search for weapons, and search for survivors. The weapon selection is pretty cool and changes the gameplay up and the survivors are great because they add to the overall defense of the barrier. Once all the weapons have been discovered it is just a race to see how long you can last without becoming a mindless zombie yourself from the repetitiveness…

Oh this game is a memory hog or at least it was for me, slowdown was creeping up around day 6 from all the zombies and bullets on screen. For the record my machine is really old so that was prolly the cause as a friend had no issues at all... so if you have an old machine beware!

Good Luck and Have Fun!

p.s. The blog is going on vacation for two weeks while I run around Spain with my girlfriend!

Flash Game of the Week: 04/23/07

2007-04-22T23:24:00.000-07:00

The game this week is The Fancy Pants Adventures! It is a platformer with an awesome stick figure art style and speedy gameplay making it feel like a cross between Comic Zone and Sonic The Hedgehog. Mr. Fancy Pants can run, jump, and roll his way to some unknown goal in hopes of finding a new level to further test his platforming skills. The animation is top notch and the music really brought the whole thing together, this is a must for any old school gamer!

Like I said this is a platformer in the truest sense of the genre because all you do is run and jump through the level. What is great about the game is that the physics of the character are very fun; he gains momentum when running altering the jump, which can then be combined with hills and ramps to create super fun launching pads. The run also allows him to run along curved paths for that Sonic loop-de-loop feeling which can then be turned into a roll by pressing the down arrow key. Mr. Fancy Pants wields the holy grail platformer mechanic... the controllable jump! Both the horizontal and vertical control feel natural which is a huge accomplishment, other than the frame delay on jump activation and moments of slowdown the jump was spot on. The sense of scale to the levels was awesome and made me want to explore all around which actually landed me into a secret level where I got the Wall Jump ability. After that I was hooked and cannot wait for more levels to play.

Speaking of more levels, Level 2 Demo is available now! The game overall feels much smoother and responsive. It also includes some other adjustments to Mr. Fancy Pant’s abilities such as a Slide, Ledge Hang, Wall Jump, Hand over Hand Rope Climb, and a CANNON! Give it a shot and lets hope someone snatches this thing up and puts it out on Playstation Network with a level editor!

Good Luck and Have Fun!

p.s. Thanks to Omar for sending this my way!

Flash Game of the Week: 04/16/07

2007-04-16T00:49:00.000-07:00

Sometimes to a fault I am a creature of habit so I am starting a new habit, called Flash Game of the Week! From now on, Monday is going to start with me posting a link to my current favorite flash game. I hope you get as much fun out of them as I have!

The game this week is Indestructotank! It has juggling, explosions, and a combo counter people and that is all that really needs to be said but on top of that it has an EXP system to increase the probability of juggling. Basically you pilot this tank that is indestructible and crash into the enemy armaments to launch the tank into the air to smash into the enemies.

The design of the game hinges on the player’s ability to keep the tank floating in the air racking up as many enemy kills from one initial launch. The more combo hits and distance covered the more EXP gained. The EXP is then used to purchase a greater frequency in certain types of enemies; I think you are starting to see the vicious circle here! Like any addictive game there is a greed factor, the tank has a fuel gauge and when it runs out the tank explodes immediately. The trick is not to get so greedy that you keep a combo going on too long before banking the EXP, which only happens when the tank hits the ground. I was pissed the first time I had a 20+ combo and the tank blew up before I could land to hit the EXP plateau and refuel.

Personal Best:
Max Combo = 26
Max Combo Score = 1494
Max Height = 164
Max Experience = 1770

Good Luck and Have Fun!

HIPPOPOTOMONSTROSESQUIPEDALIAN

2007-04-05T22:21:00.000-07:00

That sure is a mouthful and by a mouthful I mean monster disintegrating death ray of spelling power found in Bookworm Adventures! Let’s be honest I am a terrible speller so the folks over at Pop Cap created just thing to help me conquer my spelling deficiency, a sort of turn based Scrabble RPG. I love me some games with learning!

The game sends Lex, a wisecracking bookworm, off on an adventure to save whom else but the princess. The princess is whisked away through the pages of three books, which are filled with mythological beasts, pirates, and monsters all standing between Lex and the princess. Each level is broken into a few fights with a climactic boss fight yielding a hidden treasure Lex can then use to boost his abilities. The hidden treasures range from damage upgrades to status boosts; one of my favorites was the Bow of XYZ that added extra damage to any word using one of those letters. In between levels there are mini-games, which can yield items and special tiles to aid Lex in his quest for the princess, which serve as a nice distraction.

The spelling gameplay is centered on a 4x4 grid of tiles, each containing a letter and colored dot. The colored dots serve determine the strength of the tile; there are bronze, silver, and gold dots and the strength increases in the same order. Length of word increases the amount of damage dealt per word spelled so when coupled with the dot system it creates a simple relationship for dealing damage. Sounds easy enough right, well now come the RPG elements; the creatures can cast spells and use special moves to change the status of with the tiles and Lex himself. Most of the status changes are variations on damage over time, wait X turn, and lose a turn. Now to be fair the designers also included almost all of the same abilities for Lex to use against his foes by allowing his tiles to care special properties. All of these systems work together to make the player create strategies for spelling based on the potential of their own tiles and the abilities of the creature. It may sound like a lot to take in but the game is paced to introduce these systems in such a way that once you think you have the hang of one element a new one comes into play and the learning starts all over again. Without this the game would have gotten quite stale and boring within the first 15 minutes, so kudos to the designers for keeping it fresh!

Now I am going to ramble a bit about all the little touches that made this game so endearing. First the dialogue is pretty funny Lex and the creatures all have personality and make you want to actually read the text bubbles. The sound effects, character models, and animations further the personality of the creatures to something rarely found in games these days. Mouse clicking on Lex himself makes him perform funny little animations that feel like taunts, silly and fun for no reason at all. Oh yeah Lex can level up as well with the traditional EXP gained from each creature he defeats yet another nice nod to RPG genre. If you actually die all of the mini-game re-spawn to help you build up potions and special tiles for the next fight, the system can be abused by just dying time and time again to buff up for the later fights. I am glad this is in there for the people that might be great a spelling but suck at the strategy aspect. Overall I loved this game even though I suck at spelling. Give it a shot if you have time… demo found at Pop Cap!

p.s. Here is a much more colorful and well written review!

Back to School

2007-03-19T20:41:00.000-07:00

The wonderful vacation from work is over and tomorrow I go back to school so to speak. I think the time off was much needed but I kind of wasted most of it you could say because I was mostly trying to adjust back to having a life outside of work. I did not take any grand vacations due to scheduling conflicts with my girlfriend nor did I go back home to see the family like I should have, instead I read a lot, relaxed, and caught up on a lot of games and various entertainment. Oh and I reconnected with some friends whom I have not really talked to since E3 last year.

The one thing that is certain is that the best cure for a block in creativity is to become bored and honestly for me this is totally true! I have had more ideas for random things that I would like to either make or get involved in during my break than anytime in recent memory. Also not having to be anywhere lets me indulge in my favorite creative activity which I have dubbed "The Archimedes Shower". I know this may sound a littel weird but I do a lot of thinking in the shower and usually come up with many of the ideas for God of War gameplay mechanics while I am showering. I cannot count the number of times I would go home during crunch on God of War 2 baffled by some logic issue with a boss fight or broken system within Kratos himself not knowing how I was going to fix it but in the morning after a little bit of sleep it would always dawn on me during my shower how I might go about fixing these problems. I hope by coming "clean" about my secret muse I do not jinx it!

One of my favorite things to do during my vacation was to go back through all the old designs I have worked on and see if there were any seeds that could be nurtured for future projects. I kind of forgot how many games I worked on that were cancelled during my first few years as a designer. If you scroll down you can see the games, which I have been credited on during my 7 years in the business. So I have shipped 6 games in 7 years which is a super good ratio if you ask anyone in the industry but check this out I have also work on 3 games which were in development for at least 3 months and another 3 games which never made it past the proof of concept phase. Looking back at those numbers after completing a monster game like God of War 2, I wonder how many games I will actually ship before I turn 35… my guess is two if I am lucky with the scope and scale that next generation is demanding.

At first I was really bummed out by this realization, but then I thought about it: no matter what game I was working on I always worked just as hard no matter if it was good or not. So what keeps us coming back for more, is it money, fame, love for the craft, a sense of completion or some ill proportioned mix of those things? For me it’s the thought of not doing it that brings me back. I know I could do something else that pays more with normal hours I would be bored out of my mind and miss it more than words.

So I am going to walk into work tomorrow like a bright-eyed freshman on his first day of high school, we’ll see if I get to take the girl of my dreams to the senior prom! Sucks to know I will be shoved into a locker many times before the prom.

God of War 2 Launch

2007-03-14T00:13:00.000-07:00

Sony let the kids out to play for a night up in San Francisco and it was quite an entertaining evening. Cory put on a show like only he can do and even got us up in front of the media for our 5 minutes of fame, thanks Hollywood!

I could go into detail about all the crazy fun things that went on that night but I am going to link to the 1Up coverage. You can see the backsides of Derek, Todd, and myself along with Mark McDonald of 1Up fame here… thanks again for meeting up with us Mark!

So here are a few pictures April and I took during the night.

God of War 2 Dev Team Members (sadly not all of us)

Nate (level designer) and Derek (combat designer)

Cory and Carole Ruggier (Voice of Athena)

Cory and Harry Hamlin (Voice of Perseus)

1Up Crew!

The 1Up kids were also kind enough to have us over to the office the day after. It was cool to hang out and see how the other side lives. Everyone was really friendly and genuinely happy to shoot the shit about games which is awesome because when you work in the industry you tend to get jaded after awhile. I really wanted to play some fighting games with them because its rare to find people down to play anymore but we had to catch a plane so maybe next time, good luck in the VF tourney Ryan! Thanks again to Karen, Brooks, Jason, and Cesar for hanging out and making the night even better!

Sorry for the short post but I am tired and need to sleep…

Opening a can of worms

2007-02-25T22:13:00.000-08:00

It was hard to even write this post because I kind of just wanted to ignore what was going with all of the coverage. Until I got a phone call from a friend who was like dude you are drinking now, WTF!

I never imagined so many outlets would pick up the whole car story but I was so wrong. At first I thought it was kind of funny because lots of friends and co-workers were making light of it but then it all went a bit sour. Kotaku thought the story was kind of boring I guess so they decided to give it a little more spice by saying I was drunk. OK this is where I sort of draw the line because personally I have never taken a drink ever, not to say there is anything wrong with that, but for me it has just been something I stayed away from as a rule.

I am not mad at Kotaku but more puzzled as why did they felt the need to imply this falsehood, was the story too boring? I mean at least Joystiq took the time to figure out how much the bet would cost me and even went on to make speculation of the blog entry being a marketing ploy, I can assure you this not the case. Although I can see how this could be the case with the fowl up by Sony in the past which we all have a good laugh at, its like sometimes you win and sometimes you get made fun of on the internet. That being said I cannot really complain about being made fun of on the Internet, I was stupid and deserve it… hell I made the post just for that reason. In the end feel free to continue to make fun of this situation because I am laughing about it (except the drunk thing) but try to at least read the post, maybe even fact check, or ask for a comment like a journalist. It makes me wonder how much of anything I read on some of these sites is not quite accurate which really makes me not interested in reading them at all but then again it’s the internet so whatever. In writing this I am surely asking for more reticule but I’d rather set the story straight so here goes.

The bet was stupid and I will probably not honor it just because we make idiot bets like this all the time and no one ever pays up. The April fools joke comments sound like a good way out as well! Maybe I will rent the car for a day or something just to make fun of the bet itself, we can drive around Santa Monica like we are rich for a day and then return it as we return to reality. I wish game developers were paid enough to roll around in nice cars and such but the reality of it is that most game developers live in apartments with roommates or perhaps a condo with their girlfriend or boyfriend. Now this is not to say that we are not paid well, I cannot complain in the least because I do have a place to live, a car to drive, and food on the table. I mean we love what we do so we work crazy hours to bring great games to the public because honestly that is all we want as well, I love playing great games and even bad games because I know someone sat down and put a lot of effort into creating that experience.

We at Sony Santa Monica also try to put ourselves out there to the people. Everyone tries to answer questions, leave our work emails open to the fans, write blogs, etc... so when people made comments like I was trying seem all rich and snooty that made me feel bad but it was my own fault because I can see how the post could be taken that way. I would like to say I am sorry for that.

Also I am NOT really trying to persuade people from buying the game, I guess my dry humor does not come off so well in type. I just want to clear that up because I hope the game sells well because the team worked very hard to create something for the fans and hopefully new fans.

At the end of the day I am just a guy doing what he loves and hopes people love what I am doing… knowing this makes it easier to be away from friends, family, and life while you are creating these games… thanks for reading.

Restless

2007-02-16T03:08:00.000-08:00

When I get tired my mind begins to wander and fills with Nostalgia… it’s like comfort food but for the brain. I love feeling like a kid and me feeling like a kid is Ohio… sure most think I am crazy when I talk about home but I love it, I miss it, I want to go back about every other day. Ohio is my Nostalgic Neverland, filled with sights of secret G.I. Joe forts, kickball games in St. Joseph’s parking lot, and that TV where I first took on Gannon. It’s all there, the building blocks of my imagination; the skill set that allows me to wade through the vast ambiguity of being a game designer.

I’ll be completely honest; I would love to build my entire video game career around Nostalgia. Connecting the dots from the "now" to the "then" so to speak always seems to trigger some sort of reaction in people’s minds. I mean the games I respond to most usually make me feel like a kid again because some “First Experience” has been tapped into which holds a special place in my universe because it was a “First Experience”! Take Calling All Cars for instance… made me think of this cops and robbers tag game we played as kids called Jail Break. I remembered the first time I played that game it was great, 20 kids running around 2 city blocks telling kids to go to jail or freeing all the kids from jail. Even though Calling All Cars does not play like this tag game exactly, it has some of the same elements at the macro level, small playfield, cops, robbers, and a jail, which triggered the response in me.

Could designing games that trigger an emotional response be that simple? Just tap into a “First Experience” and bam you’re done! Of course this is not the case but it could be the building blocks for many games to come by selecting some “First Experience” which almost all people deal with in their lives. I mean to be honest I would say Fumito Ueda and his team are already doing this, it could be argued that both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are about a “First Experience”. Ico seems to be about a “First Love”, perhaps even “First Kiss”… I know I would go out of my way to never let anything happen to the girl that touched my life like that for the first time. Shadow of the Colossus seems to be about “First Loss”… again I would do just about anything to get back my great grandmother when I heard she passed away. I know that even if I were correct in saying these games are about those feelings, the theme alone is not something that will carry the game but if the theme is strong and true then it will resonate with people far beyond the idea that it is just a game.

After all that I find this a little interesting. Ask someone something about their own past and once in a while they will usually start by saying something like “The first time”. I love me some Nostalgia!

What was I thinking?

2007-02-12T16:29:00.000-08:00

Ok, when you work a lot and hang out with the same people everyday you tend to do stupid things because you are bored and wished you had a real life. Normally these stupid things are relegated to food eating challenges and hey do this and I will give you a dollar but one day we (God of War designers) were really tired, I mean really tired and this crazy bet came up. The bet kinda goes like this if God of War 2 sells 500,000 copies by April 1st I have to lease a Maserati Quattoporte for one year and drive these idiots to lunch everyday. It was pretty funny at the time and everyone was laughing because it was so outrageous which was cool because it was the only bright spot of that day which is really sad if you think about it. So here is the car...

Well the bet spread around the office and people would not stop talking about what color I should get and if they could go for a ride or how fucking stupid I am for making a bet like that. Don't get me wrong because I like to tease and don't mind being teased a little but I might have to blow my entire savings on this bet, NOT COOL AT ALL. The worst thing about it is that all I get out of it if I win is like free lunch for a year or something stupid like that which proves how tired I was during the inception of this whole thing.

Now the game is done and the first reviews are out and OH SHIT people like it which is great but bad for me! I thought this was a safe bet and there was no way we would ever do those kinds of numbers first month but then I start hearing about pre-orders from Gamestop being great and all this other stuff and now good reviews... I am so screwed!!! So if you are a gamer and overall mean person then run out and buy God of War 2 day one and have a laugh at my expense as I become bankrupt. Now if you a gamer and overall nice person run out and buy God of War 2 after April 1st and feel good knowing you saved me from becoming bankrupt.

Regardless of our sales, Congrats to all the people involved with God of War 2, we busted ass on this thing for 2 years and finally it has to come to an end, well almost since we are still a month away from ship. Oh nevermind that the picture is from the future, it's cool Kratos is good friends with John Titor... (pictured credited to our own Jimmy Olsen, Sir William Weissbaum)

Special thanks to the Derek, Jason, Adam (Combat Team), and the Animators, I could not imagine working with anyone else... Level Designers you are special too so don't feel left out!

Oh and that Cory guy for not making me take the long and lonely Bruce (ok is was David on the show) Banner walk a few years ago with the sad music that was rejected from All My Children during the credits of the Hulk TV Show. I will totally be in the documentary next time if there is a shot of me walking to my car with the backpack and that music playing after you yell at me, PROMISE!

Saint Peter let me into heaven...

2006-12-21T01:05:00.000-08:00

The picture says it all, but does not perpare you for two imacculate Astro City cabinets with perfect monitors, perfect american sticks, and perfect japanese buttons running head to head ST... yes Heaven is in LA! Thank you so much to Derek for driving and to Peter for setting this up and having us over. Two hours plus, 106 matches later I was still feeling like it was not quite real. I mean SPD was coming out and 720 even showed up to the party! Derek was raging with Ryu like always while Peter was showing us every trick in the book with New Ken... it got a little dirty when Peter summoned Old Sagat but hey he is fun to play too! Heaven ended a little after midnight much like a Cinderella Story.

It's hard to believe the game is 12 years old but I still play it every chance I get. While I do not get to play that often, it's crazy when you do get to play because people seem to pop out of nowhere to play. When that happens you know the game is special! I guess that is why I wanted to get into video games as a career, I wanted to be a part of something like that... I thought going to Sony would make that happen and it did with God of War. Now with God of War 2 it feels like it might happen again which is a real blessing but I will shut up before I jinx it. Hitting BETA feels good but the hard part is coming, polishing and tuning this monster before it ships early next year, fun fun times ahead. Anyhow check Cory's Blog because I am sure he will have more to say about Beta and God of War 2 in general.

Pulse...

2006-10-25T01:13:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, the blog is still alive I assure you of that! However my ability to conjure up anything worth posting has been minimized by the heavy demands of the God of War 2 work schedule a.k.a "The Red Schedule". I really tried to create a real update with something meaningful about game design, then I tried to write something about how I design, and finally this is what you get because my brain is mush. The blog will also not be updated much until the game is finished because well I like to focus. Cory and Derek are much better at updating with interesting stuff anyhow so see them for the dish on the game. I promise to get back to this thing in full force when "Boredom, the cure for creativity" shows up in March or shortly thereafter.

In other news I am not the biggest purchaser of Video games but the whole process of going to EB sucks balls. Everything has to be pre-order or hidden in the sea of used games without real boxes! If anyone knows of a good mom n' pop style game store in the Santa Monica or surrounding area other than Hyper Game please let me know. I used to work at a small store back in Ohio and miss those days of the people actually caring and wanting to sell games without warranty quotas or pre-order sales.

Case in point I want this, but cannot even pre-order it at the store. I need to pre-order it online, oh well times are changing.

Childhood Games - Part 1: DS Activity Book

2006-08-08T00:11:00.001-07:00

Maybe I am just a nerd and liked elementary school way too much but I was addicted to Activity Book style assignments. They always felt like a puzzle or a game instead of actual homework. Normally I would not just post a game idea for everyone to read since one day I might get to make that game but since an Activity Book game would work best on the Nintendo DS and Sony had nothing like the DS I will make an exception. Hopefully someone will read this and go out there and make this game, which I would then buy and enjoy for hours on end.

The game would contain crossword puzzles, word jumbles, word searches, mazes, connect the dots, and even a coloring book with a grading system for staying within the lines. I mean really that’s it… nothing more to do just hundreds of these things to do for five minutes at a time. The point of this game is there is no point to this game other than to waste time and complete a task to feel good about completing the task but then again most parents will already argue that all video games embody this at the root level so what’s one more added to the mix. I think crunch time makes me want these kinds of games the most and that is why I fall back on fighting games since I can just turn my brain off and play from a previously built base of knowledge which requires little thought to recall for an intermediate level play. Also the game would be full of awesome little characters gauging your progress with witty wisdom regarding your skill level, wonderful completion sound tones like obtaining an item in Zelda, and topping it all off with a quick and intuitive menu system themed much like of a trapper keeper just for old time sake!

Back to the DS… so the question I have been going over in my head since I purchased a DS Lite is how long until kids are actually using this type of technology to learn in a classroom setting? Better yet could this be the place my design skills call edutainment home when the game industry casts me aside for some young kid willing to work twice the hours for half the pay? In all honesty it actually sounds kind of cool, making neat cute games that fit into tight little boxes that actually help a child to learn, I mean if we can corrupt the minds of the youth as the government says we do could we possibly help them to learn as well? Ok so enough with the questions and poor sentence structure and on to list of possible games found in my imaginary DS Activity Book. I admit this is a terrible way to express what would be found in this game but I am tired and don’t feel like doing all the work for someone else but if you would like me to complete the work feel free to email me and we can work something out under the table like back in 1989 when I was sticking it to the man by not paying taxes on my 700 dollar lawn mowing season.

Numbers:
- add / subtract / multiply / divide
- percentage / fraction / decimal
- square / square root
- prime numbers

Words:
- crossword
- word jumble
- word search
- word rhyme

Images:
- coloring book
- connect the dots
- map quiz
- i spy

Sounds:
- animal sound
- instrument sound
- simon
- name that tune

Cards:
- crazy eights
- go fish
- old maid
- slap jacks

p.s. Veronica Mars Season 2 August 22nd!

E3, the party is over...?

2006-07-30T12:15:00.000-07:00

After working all week towards a playtest I decided to catch up on my news and the bomb shell that E3 will not happen next year was waiting to explode on me. Tired and sad I am heading back to work to tell Kratos the news... right after I make a pit stop for an apple bear claw!

Industry Events Calendar?

2006-07-09T02:31:00.000-07:00

If you are like me and do not get out much for whatever reasons, you probably get a little pissed when you miss something that might be interesting enough to make you go out. So here is my little attempt to remind all of us of upcoming industry related events. I wish there were a comprehensive website out there which had a real calendar with cool links and ultra neat html but no such site exists. So I tracked down as many as I could like the DNA of world icons needed to create Serpentor! I will try to do this once a month until someone with much more free time takes the lead and creates the Serpentor Calendar for Video Game Industry and Related Subject Matter… if you know of anything else going on please feel free to let me know and I will add it to the list!

California Extreme Arcade Pinball and Video Game Collector’s Show

Evolution: US World Fighting Game Championships

San Diego International Comic-Con

Atari Age: Classic Gaming Events

Women’s Gaming Conference

The Game Initiative

Video Games Live

GameDev

IGDA

p.s. Veronica Mars…

Jon Stewart totally reads my blog...

2006-07-01T11:39:00.000-07:00

Well let me think he does since I saw coverage of video games on his show the other night. Now get some guests on there to talk about the topic from our industry!

Anyhow here are the clips for your viewing pleasure, writing about them seems pointless since they speak for themselves.

Exhibit A: New Era – Journalism

Exhibit B: Old Era – Editorial

Based on the clip below I went out and bought the book and while I do not agree with the whole of it so far there are some pretty interesting ideas. I plan on finishing it this holiday weekend and a review will follow later next week. Have fun grillin and chillin on the 4th of July or blow some shit up instead.

Everything Bad Is Good For You

p.s. this lame update is even lamer now that I see jane and cory have posted about the same topics awhile ago, oh well... great minds think alike?

Akward phone calls...

2006-06-25T20:24:00.000-07:00

Oh, hello… what’s that you say, would I like to leave my current job? Funny you should ask this since I am at my job now! If you have not guessed yet this is a recruiter doing their job by asking me if I would like to leave my current job mid project to be placed into a position they feel I would be perfectly suited. I am in fact so perfectly suited for this position that it is of little consequence where or what the position will be. Let’s go jump off a bridge while we’re at it Karen (fictitious name of a false name of the real person calling me)! I wish I could push the sarcasm aside but when I am sitting at my desk and Karen calls me and I tell her thanks but no thanks and no more than 30 seconds later Derek’s phone rings with Karen on the other end, well how can one not poke fun.

Ok, to be fair lets establish what a recruiter is trying to do before I give my 2 cents. A recruiter is someone that might be able to assist me in creating a better future for myself in the video game industry by finding positions, which match my skills for usually more money than I am currently being paid. They are also trying to bring talent to teams trying to realize an AAA product, so the publisher is well served by recruiters in this example. So in a perfect world it looks like I am getting more money for my work, the publisher is making an AAA product, and the public is playing a great game then how can I wag my finger Steven Colbert style at recruiters?

First off as I was sort of mentioning before the phone call starts with a lie. The name given by the recruiter on the phone is rarely the real name of the person. What a great way to build trust when discussing the future of my professional career. Most already know this as well but that nice new awesome salary deal they just got you means they are getting 20% of that salary as a commission, good looking out for umm me I guess. The thing that really pisses me off is the devil on the shoulder aspect of a recruiter calling someone, temping them with more money and exciting projects while they are committed to a current project. Now all of a sudden ethics has become the issue and the recruiter does not care about ethics so the person has to go through that internal struggle of what is best for their career and family while battling the guilt of screwing over current team members. Depending on what kind of person you are this may not be a factor one way or the other but for some this can become a very stressful situation. I know when people leave in the middle of a project I get bummed because I know it is going to be all the more difficult to finish the game with the same level of polish without them. The best-case scenario is you lose a “bad apple” while the worst-case scenario is you lose a “friend” or “super star”.

The issue of money is a gray area when it comes to recruiters. Even though they get 20% they are still getting the client more as well which is a good thing. The Game Developer Salary survey and recruiters are about the only thing beyond inflation that will help employees gain a better wage. Here again I must admit some good can come from talks with recruiters. Management must hate the idea of recruiters when it comes to this because it gives the employee a bit of ammo during that next review.

The subject of unhappy employees is the one issue where recruiters make perfect sense. Under this circumstance I believe recruiters are doing nothing but good by trying to help someone leave a situation, which is making a negative impact on their life. The recruiter is the coast guard towing the lifeboat to shore after a terrible storm where rebuilding can begin.

In the end I don’t hate these people after all they are just trying to do a job but I do fear what they can do to a team that seems to gel and work well together. The constant temping of working on the next great superhero game, getting a 15% pay increase, or moving to a new location where housing is more affordable can make anyone think twice. I guess that is where being in love with what you are working on and working for a good company help to keep you on the straight and narrow, even though the calls roll in weekly.

Please let me know what you think about this because my mind flip-flops on this subject all the time.

p.s. Sorry it took me so long to update but the game is in full swing so the updates are going to be sparse.

p.s.s. The 1Up Show has this awesome Beach Boys inspired summer theme song so check it out!

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21,

2006-05-22T02:14:00.000-07:00

I have been sick on and off since E3 to the point where I had to take Friday off from work to shake whatever it was that had me tossing my cookies once again. So I plopped down on the couch for a few days of what I hoped to be healing and relaxing fits of boredom. Thursday night was filled with awesome History Channel documentaries entitled anything about anything DaVinci Code, which I am naturally an expert on after watching the 6-hour block of programming. I was feeling a bit better Friday night so the lady made arrangements for us to see this The DaVinci Code film… halfway through I started shivering and my eye was twitching from a terrible migraine. Long story short, the movie was entertaining and I yakked once after exiting the theater and once again when I got home.

Wow, are you still reading? Ok here is the real reason for this post. Why in the hell are video games on a media blackout when it comes to talk shows fueled by entertainment industries? I was flipping through the channels catching talk show here and there and it dawned on me that I have never once seen a single person from the world of video games on one of these shows. One might ask who the hell cares, just a bunch of old people watch the likes of Jay Leno and David Letterman. Ok smart guy so what about Conan O’Brien, Jon Stewart, and Carson Daily they have younger audiences. What it really comes down to is that appearing on these shows signifies some sort of relevance in pop culture whether it is an actor/actress, singer/musician, or the fruitcake lady, they all are doing something people want to know about right now thus they appear on these shows to advertise why they are important. Are we not doing something that people want to know about, oh wait they only want to know about us during the commercial breaks in 30 second bursts.

The finger can be pointed in many directions as to why the game industry has no presence within these media outlets. For starters publishers make games not creative human beings with vocal cords. I could go on being sarcastic about this but it really pisses me off to know not a single marketing person from a large publisher can land Will Wright, David Jaffe, Sam Houser, or anyone else pushing the medium onto one of these couches. Here is the reason it really pisses me off, Steven Spielberg! I love this guy’s movies for the most part but now he is linked with games through some EA deal and he is going to be the one on the late night talk show couches singing the praises of this amazing new storytelling medium called video games. Even when this happens I will be cheering because well it happened but inside I will be a little sad it was not one of our own.

I feel better now so it’s back to work on Monday…

p.s. 1Up Show keep making me proud!

E3: The vomit inducing headache machine of doom...

2006-05-15T12:06:00.000-07:00

E3 made me sick on thursday but before all that I was having a great time and even went back for more on Friday, that's how good the show was this year. God of War 2 showed quite well from what I could gather so all the late nights and time away from the world as a whole were worth it for 3 days under the gaming world's microscope.

Michael Cheng pulled some strings for us so we did not have to wait in that abyss that was the Wii line. Once we skipped that thing we landed inside to find chaos and more lines with no system in place to move people in and out of the area, I did manage to play a few games just to get a feel for the controller. I want to believe but for now will hope they allow for personal calibration for all titles because it was either too senesitive or completely unresponsive, for now I am fence sitting. Nintendo had a massive DS showing although I must say the games all seemed a bit more mainstream and licensed oriented which sort of bummed me out but such is the way in the middle of the consoles lifespan. Speaking of the DS, I bought a DS Lite and OMG what a sexy little machine. I was a hater on the original DS so I am discovering the world of DS for the first time with the DS Lite plus New Super Mario Bros. comes out this week!!!

The 1Up Show kids totally made an effort to show us a good time by sending tickets to the Ziff Davis party along with a t-shirt for Derek due to his medical condition. We showed up to the party and they would not let Derek's girlfriend in so we pulled some trickery and threw the arm band over the fence for instant access. The party was crazy crowded but there was lots of food and they even had one of my favorites, Vanilla Tootsie Rolls (I pocketed a gang of these before leaving)! That Jane girl was kind enough to chat with us over some loud music for awhile along with some freelance writer guy that was quite entertaining yet I forget his name, sorry. Overall it was a nice way to end the first day so thanks again to the 1Up Show!

Cory Barlog, was part of an awesome panel series entitled Cracking the code of creativity, give it a read because the people knew their shit! Cory gave the God of War combat team a shout out too so that made me smile too bad he blew me off for some aussie reporter after the panel ended, I think the Hollywood nickname may return.

Overall show highlight for me was sitting down with SaiTong Man the combat designer on Heavenly Sword for about and hour to chat about all kinds of stuff. The guy was awesome and when we found out he was a Street Fighter kid it all made sense as to why that game feels so good upon first picking it up. It will be fun to see that game develope over the next year in conjuction with our own and even a nice healthy rivarly will begin or maybe we will just hire the guy! (just kidding of course)

Ok, I am really just rambling so I will stop for now because everyone has covered E3 so much already that anything else I write you have already read somewhere else.

warm socks...

2006-04-16T20:51:00.000-07:00

To the people that read this thing (insert crickets), sorry it has been so long since I have updated but E3 is on the way and that means long hours at the office getting the game ready for some sort of showing. Kratos snuggling aside, I finally got a day to do laundry (oops April did the laundry) and catch up on the world around me. So with my warm socks fresh out of the dryer let us begin...

Derek Daniels has me hooked on the 1up 1up 1up shoooooow! This thing is pure genius and needs to be on network TV yesterday. After the total and complete decline of G4's Attack of the Show, yes new host girl you officially ended the party. Kevin Rose's departure started the fall now with Sarah and Brendan leaving Kevin P to save the Alamo, I feel like it's going to be 6 weeks and then out for the show as a whole. That's where The 1up Show comes in, get that shit on TV now... screw G4 and Spike with all their fake video game content, but we all know the moment it does go on TV it will most likely be ruined so quicktime downloads it will be for now! Oh yeah if you 1up Show people are reading this, Derek and I will totally buy you drinks at E3 and gossip it up with you so send us a note if you are down, let this be known that this is a huge offer on my end since I do not drink or socialize often at all... So don't leaving me hanging around Kentia Hall like your junior prom backup date!

On that note of meeting up with people I am going to extend that invitation to all game developers that want to talk shop or just plain BS at E3. Last year I saw Tim Schafer and said screw and went over to talk to him... it was awesome to meet the guy and it got me to thinking why can't I talk to other game designers all the time. Since that day I have been trying to figure out a way to get game designers to unite and talk to one another. So let's figure this out and make E3 the first of some kind of meet and greet your peers so we might advance this industry in a positive way by actually talking to each other. I mean it's pretty sad Naughty Dawg is like walking distance from our office but I have yet to meet a single designer that works there, Sony was going to set something up but I guess things were too busy or something... BOO! Thank goodness we got to say hi and hello to the Ueda and his team around GDC time but I want to do more of this, so send me an email if you want to meet up and E3.

Kingdom Hearts 2 and my Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper Slurpee are waiting so I am out for now...

Nugget of Wisdom...

2006-03-16T23:10:00.000-08:00

Once and awhile a Nugget of Wisdom hits you upside the head changing thoughts, ideas, and views forever. Sharing these Nuggets of Wisdom can be just as enjoyable as receiving them so let me know what you think of this one.

"Movies are really good at story and use action to fill in the gaps while games are really good at action and use story to fill in the gaps"

This Nugget of Wisdom came courtesy of a conversation with a good friend whom I had not heard from in a quite sometime. He was interested in playing some video games since its cold where he lives right now. We talked and talked about many games and in the end he seemed bored before playing anything, he was saying things like "that seems way too long!" and "is that really entertaining?". The only games that he seemed interested in were games that seemed like big budget action movies, which brought him to say "what's short with a lot of action?", now we were getting somewhere. All of a sudden the Nugget of Wisdom slams into me as he says "playing the action will be awesome because it is usually the filler part of a movie". Who was this guy? Why did he say that? I thought about it and realized, movies are really good at story and use action to fill in the gaps while games are really good at action and use story to fill in the gaps. I think I might have known this on some kind of subconscious level but it definitely sank in after our conversation.

After coming to this realization, I researched this idea on the net and found quite a few resources detailing this concept. There was one in particular that caught my interest by a blogger named "Kung Fu Monkey"; I mean come on the guy had me at hello with that name. Anyhow, he wrote this awesome blog entry, Writing: Action Scenes, which might seem trivial to the more enlightened but I found it to be eye opening for someone that has difficulty with story writing. Give it a read because I am much better equipped to design an action sequence for a game after reading his blog entry.

Kung Fu Monkey's Nugget of Wisdom!
"Don't write action scenes.
Write suspense scenes that require action to resolve."

Simply remove the word "write" and replace it with "design" and video games might begin to combine emotional participation and physical participation equally. Who knows what kind of unique experience that marriage could create but I bet Hollywood will be a little more jealous of its growing little brother if it happens. And no matter how you slice it two degrees of participation is better than one so let’s hope video games develop this inherit advantage responsibly to grow out from under the shadows of other entertainment industries.

Shooters the old school way!

2006-03-15T21:07:00.000-08:00

Why did Doom and its clones have to come along and call themselves First Person Shooters? Now every kid playing these types of games has truncated the name down to “shooter” thus soiling the original definition of a “shooter”. Real shooters have bullets flying everywhere, oh wait FPS’s do too… DAMN!

Anyhow, I am on a big “shooter” kick lately so I decided to make a list of my favorites. I chose one game per console that I owned at some point in my life, yes I even had an arcade cabinet. Also I know some of these games appeared on other platforms prior to the one I am listing them under but it’s where I experienced the game. Also Also I limited the choices to flight based games so I don't want to hear any bitching about games like Gunsmoke, Mercs, Heavy Barrel not making the list... I'll do a Run n' Gun list some other time. Finally the list was so hard to make, I feel like a loser for omitting Space Mega Force, Galactic Attack, Bangai-O, Forgotten Worlds, and I was called an “ignorant whore” by a friend for not putting 1943 on the list. Screw it; here is my list of sentimental “shooters”!

Ajax (konami) – Arcade
Zaxxon (sega) – ColecoVision
River Raid (activision) – Atari 2600
Life Force (konami) – NES
Un Squadron (capcom) – SNES
Starfox64 (nintendo) – N64
Ikaruga (treasure) – Gamecube
Afterburner (sega) – Master System
Thunderforce IV (technosoft) – Genesis
Lords of Thunder (hudson soft) – Sega CD
Radiant Silvergun (treasure) – Saturn
Mars Matrix (capcom) – Dreamcast
Aero Blasters (kaneko) – TurboGrafix-16
Einhander (square) – PS1
R-Type Final (konami) - PS2

Final verdict – UN SQUARDON #1

Tell me what else I missed because I know I forgot some gems…

On a side note I have found that it is damn near impossible to find any new “shooters” to play these days with the exception of Geometry Wars which I am considering dropping $500 to play right now. Craving a twitch based fix!

MPAA vs. ESRB

2006-03-09T04:55:00.000-08:00

A tongue severed, a book burned, a radio silenced, a film edited, a song altered, a show cancelled, a thread deleted and so what censorship burden will video games bare?

The advancement of information/entertainment mediums always causes a regulatory reflex, which in theory will create a safe haven for the absorption of this new media content. Sadly though, being the new kid on the block also means assuming the role of public enemy #1, whether it is warranted or not. The first step in regulating usually comes in the form of a rating system developed and governed by the industry itself. Rating systems are useful tools which allow the consumer to make an informed purchase based on the age appropriate guidelines set by the industry. However when rating systems are tainted by the influence of politicians and parent groups seeking media attention and political gain it becomes an entirely different issue known as censorship which can lead to infringement upon the First Amendment. My political background is shaky at best so I am not going to delve into things I know little about but I am going to talk about something I do know a great deal about, Best Buy and the products it carriers barring the marks of the MPAA and ESRB.

First let us examine what the MPAA and the ESRB have created to measure the age at which certain types of content are deemed appropriate for viewing.

Oddly enough the symbols are different yet very close in meaning until you delve deeper into what content restrictions reside under each heading between the MPAA and ESRB. Also notice that the ESRB descriptions are quite specific and explanative compared to an almost suggested inference of wording found within the MPAA ratings. Looks like the ESRB is doing a better job at communicating whom should be playing what kind of product so why is the video game industry catching so much heat? Well this group disagrees plus I forgot about kids playing doom IRL at High School, “Hot Coffee” breaks at work, and laundering WoW gold via eBay, which are all evil things created by video games which never existed prior to the advent of the Joystick so perhaps something is wrong. Rant mode is almost upon us and since I have yet to help bring a child into this world pointing the finger at parenting would be unfair. However these few isolated cases contribute to preventing an entire industry from being respected as an art form.

Let’s talk Best Buy! I frequent the local store each and every Tuesday in search the hottest new movies and video games at great low prices! So I am browsing the new DVD releases and see quite a few specials editions of films brandishing “UN-RATED” tags, which tickles my interest on some kind of Mad Magazine level. I am thinking to myself I bet there is some cool shit on those discs stuffy MPAA people did not want me to see for the $10 movie ticket at the theaters but damn the movie publisher for suckering me with this poor yet effective trick. After I check out a few of these movies I start thinking could I make a game like this, I bet we could get lots of shock sales? The dollar signs in my eyes fade away as GTA: San Andreas enters my field of view because I remember it being pulled from the shelves and replaced by the new “EXTRA-RATED” version, so sad for video games.

“It's obscene, vulgar, vile, and on sale now. Get your copy of The Aristocrats today. Don't miss out on the joke! (Sigh… great marketing)”

Now this part is a bit I would love to test if I knew someone with a child between the ages of 10-12. The experiment would go as follows, send them into Best Buy armed with a handful of ten dollar bills to buy these movies on DVD: Finding Nemo, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Starsky and Hutch, Terminator 2, and Eurotrip. The probability of the child exiting the store with 4 or 5 of the movies in hand would be extremely high in my personal opinion.

Now let’s repeat the experiment with the following list of video games: Nintendogs, Lego Star Wars, Ratchet and Clank 3, God of War, and GTA: San Andreas. The probability of the child exiting the store with 2 or 3 of the games in hand would be extremely high in my personal opinion.

Here are the ratings breakdown of those movies and games.

Movies:
Finding Nemo (G)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (PG)
Starsky and Hutch (PG-13)
Terminator 2 (R)
Eurotrip (UR)

Games:
Nintendogs (E)
Lego Star Wars (E+)
Ratchet and Clank 3 (T)
God of War (M)
GTA: San Andreas (AO)

The real kicker would have the child buy as many "UN-RATED" movies as they could over a period of a week while attempting to purchase one copy of GTA: San Andreas. I have a feeling more movies would end up being bought then a game(s). Good job media and politicians for exposing one game as the devil while neglecting a bulk of movies advertising controversial material as a reason to own and view the product. I know children should not be playing GTA and God of War not to mention many other video games labeled beyond their age bracket but let’s try to be fair here and keep other media out of their hands well.

Here is a little food for thought about some of the “Mature” rated titles that have come out over the last few years. For me the list is almost laughable at times but I guess blood and violence in games rates two whole categories above melting nazi’s with a religions artifact under the watchful eyes of the ESRB.

Mature Titles:
GTA series
Castlevania: Curse of Darkness
God of War
Dead or Alive 4
Halo
NanoBreaker
25 to Life
Gun
Resident Evil 4
24: The Game
True Crime
Spartan: Total Warrior
Poker Superstars
Rumble Roses
Prince of Persia 2
Blood Will Tell
Fable

When I grow up...

2006-03-06T03:29:00.000-08:00

What do you want to be when you grow up? The question appears to be innocent enough but the answer will fundamentally alter a person’s course of life. The question is usually asked during youth to determine the interest of child so that parent’s may indulge and nurture this fragile ideal. For some this ideal may never be decided upon. Yet for others it will become the cornerstone of an educational focus which is later transferred into a career. However for most it continually changes often during high school and well into college where the question becomes painfully overbearing as the real world is looming just over the horizon of adulthood.

We all have our stories of how we got to where we are in the world and why or why not, so here is my little tale of how I became one of the lucky people in the world that gets paid to do what they love for a living. If any aspiring designers are out there reading, this one’s for you!

The first time I even thought of being a game designer was in 4th grade (1986-1987). We all know what came out that that Christmas, NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM (NES)! The Atari was tossed under the bed to collect dust forever while Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda took over my huge ass 27” wooden cabinet Zenith hand me down TV for the remainder of my Christmas vacation.

The Cadillac of Televisions!

I remember my friends and I throwing snowballs at my kid sister like Mario’s fireballs as we hopped and jumped through the snow that first day back from winter break, it was a great Great GREAT time to be a kid! The teacher was quick to bring us all back to reality with our first assignment being a book-writing contest across the state. I selected that oh so important question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” as my topic. This book is what got me started on this post because oddly enough in 4th grade barely knowing what a designer was let alone a game designer I said I wanted to be one near the end of the book after all the cheesy typical cliché type answers like fireman and athlete filled the first few pages. I know many of you are saying, “yeah right you fucking loser” but here is the picture to prove it since I still have the book!

Point and laugh!

OMG look at that horrible artwork and damn that hair! Sadly neither has improved at all over the last 20 years… but HELL YEAH anyhow because I made a little dream come true, which is pretty rare in life so I enjoyed this immensely. I was going to post the whole book but it is a train wreck and I get enough shit from the other designers on a daily basis. The final page has a picture of an F-15 fighter jet because I wanted to be in the Air Force. As I grew older and learned I might have to drop bombs on land that might be populated with innocent people all in the name of war. Well I sort of had issues with that which I had never really thought about before so I started thinking I like stars maybe there is something there for me, look out Astronomy here I come.

So it was off to college to enjoy the stars and some numbers. Long story short 3 years – 3 colleges – 3 strategy guides later – I quit to chase after the dream of being a game designer. Just at the time that I decided to quit school an old contact, which I made at E3, helped me in landing a job at a small game studio called Paradox Development. I completed 4 games while 6 others projects were cancelled during my 4 years of employment, in the end those 4 years turned out to be my real college experience for game design. Life there was hard, because I did not know shit but was quickly moved into a position that was way beyond my skill set by default of others moving onward that were my superiors. The games were all kind of bad and the company was more concerned with finishing a game then making a great game but that is the nature of being a 3rd party developer. Milestones dictate if you are going to get paid or not so that game is created to get milestones approved instead of doing what is best for the end product. I learned all this while trying to learn my craft over exhausting hours for a peanuts wage due to my experience level. REMEMBER it’s not all getting paid to play games! So here I was transplanted from the Midwest for this dream job and it was really bummed me out. This did not compute and I felt close to short-circuiting and quitting the industry altogether. I had many heart to hearts with family and close friends before making the decision to leave Paradox. It was all aboard - next stop, Sony Santa Monica where it seemed like they wanted to make a great game and wanted to teach me how to be a strong designer. The short of it is, the team there under David Jaffe did in fact create a great game in God of War and well I am still learning how to be a strong designer in the company of some remarkably talented people. I want to thank everyone for giving the Midwest kid a shot, Fighting Game Community - Video Game Exchange - Brady Games - Paradox Development - Sony Santa Monica!

To all you youngsters out there, I have found that every game I played, every movie I watched, every comic I read and every toy I created a fictitious world for in my bedroom came together to create some kind of catalogued information which allows me to succeed at this profession so be a sponge and soak up the world.

P.S. Finish school I got lucky and I do not think people without degrees are going to be able to break into the industry much longer, plus your parents will be proud of you and stuff or something.

Personality Types

2006-02-23T01:41:00.000-08:00

A long time ago in college I took a personality test for my Psychology 101 class. I thought this test would be a complete waste of time due to the fact that questioning for most any testing purpose usually harbors some degree of cultural bias, which ultimately skews the results. Wanting to get a good grade which in this case was pass for taking the test and fail for not taking the test, I decided to sharpen my No.2 and get busy. The test instructions were quite clear and concise with the overriding idea being the participant should answer as honestly as possible in terms to self-reflection. It sounds simple and oddly enough it was quite simple. The questions were fairly vanilla with a few strangely worded sentences sprinkled throughout.

An hour later my pencil was barely dull and the test was complete so I passed but had to wait a few weeks for the test to be scored for my personality type. A week or two of class passed and the test was lost from memory until one day I walked into class and many four-letter combinations were written on the board and no they were not the ones used during rush hour on at the 405/101 junction. I sat down and my test was passed back revealing my personality type, "INFP" - INTROVERT INTUITIVE FEELING PERCEPTIVE. The ensuing hour of class was devoted to explaining what the four letters meant how they determine my problem solving process, group dynamics role, romantic tendencies, and even why I will wash and use my special bowl to eat some cereal when there are plenty of other clean bowls already available. Imagine the number this does on your head when the test is almost completely correct in determining all these things about a person without knowledge of gender, race, or religious affiliation.

I have taken this test several times since then and I always seem to score the exact same personality type "INFP". However I border on the line between "INFP" and "INFJ" by the smallest of margins, which might explain my grumpy moodiness!

Now what you have been waiting for, WTF does this have to do with game design? Nothing really although I am sure someone much smarter than myself could apply some type of formula to satisfy the needs of all personality types within one universally accommodating game, Tetris?

However, what I did learn from the results of the test, which I may have never come to understand about myself on my own, is that I thought I had a gift for mathematics and scientific logic. Yet at the end of the day my gut feelings on game design yield me considerably better results once both of prior tools have been exhausted. All that being said, this magical gut ability is damn near impossible channel on a regular basis which makes creating "Fun" all that more difficult. So when the gut check is telling you nothing its nice to know you can "Math it out" until the gut feels like speaking up.

I could go on and on about the importance of this test in my personal opinion but it's like 3am and I need to play some games before bed so perhaps I will revisit this topic again at a later date. Until then see below for links to the test and profiles of each of the 16 personality types.

Here is a crude from of the test I took all those years ago, followed by a list of the personality type profiles...

Test -
Personality Test

Introverted Profiles -
ISFJ
ISFP
ISTJ
ISTP
INFJ
INFP
INTJ
INTP

Extroverted Profiles -
ESFJ
ESFP
ESTJ
ESTP
ENFJ
ENFP
ENTJ
ENTP

Capcom - I love you, I hate you

2006-02-09T23:39:00.000-08:00

All bow down to my retrieving skills! Seriously bring your pooch on over and throw the stick but be prepared to watch him get devastated by my newfound talent. I owe it all to Onimusha 4’s Advanced School of Fetch, while attending I also minored in key finding so locksmiths beware. Go ahead and try to make the key before I find it deep in a well filled with Demon Soldier spawns. Trust me don’t even bother stepping up because you fools will get rocked just like Fido… Oh yeah, the game was boring overall yet entertaining on some subconscious level of male hunter/collector instinct. The game went down a little easier since I could skip all cut scenes and get back to awesome amounts of backtracking and uber-designed tests of valor, which totally do not kill any of the story momentum, which I skipped in the prior cut scene. Just to summarize, a “Test of Valor” is a fight scenario, which is governed by a timer, the scenario objective is explained during a splash screen. What this is doing in the middle of a heavy story driven game that is trying to achieve character feeling and emotion is beyond me.

Development teams please stop putting crappy side games in the middle of the real game, I am even going to call out the mighty Resident Evil 4 on this one. Shop Keeper shooting ranges should have been after the game was finished ONLY, you had me all the way until that came up and then the wheels started to rattle but thankfully never fell off so tragedy averted. Thinking about it more, I am going to call so much bullshit on that idea that it leaves me no choice but to say those were put in for the sole purpose of letting people know this was made by a Japanese team who thought they might lose their “we’re crazy Japanese game developers” membership card because otherwise it’s probably the single best example of an immersive genre game ever made! Regardless the game was awesome and I will be drooling for RE5, just check the needless extra games at the door, thank you.

Back to Onimusha 4, did I mention the game is fully translated into English? I mean all menus, subtitles, text, and spoken dialogue. Now while this is great for me, it makes me wonder is this saying something about the state of the Japanese game market? Perhaps it is simply a cost effective way to get a game ready for both shores? The series as a whole has been declining in sales since the initial release yet Capcom like all their franchises that start strong continues to make them. This brings up yet another question, why does Capcom care about their fans so much? Megaman is a license to print money since there are like 4957947 versions of the little blue guy they call Rockman but does it seriously generate that much cash? Well here is what I think about Capcom as a company or let me rephrase that, here is what I would love to think is true about Capcom as a company, THEY LOVE MAKING GAMES 1st and PROFIT 2nd! Admittedly this is sort of true on some level for me because they split off teams to try new things such as Clover Studios and their upcoming yet doomed to sell like 47,000 copies "Okami". These guys made Viewtiful Joe, which again sold like crap but was full of neat ideas. So Capcom I applaud you for fighting the “good fight” and making the games I still want to play even though you probably lose money on them. I’ve supported you on the backs of many dead blades of grass during my youth and will continue to do so especially since you put God of War out in Japan for us, thanks!

FILO: first in last out

2006-02-06T02:42:00.000-08:00

So as you can see I started this thing way back in September 2005, well now all my friends are doing it... NOW I feel like the last kid picked for the kickball game. Thanks for not dropping the Ball!

Yeah! Game Design the thing I do for a living and hope to keep doing for a living if I do not screw it up with my grumpy attitude. Yes, I am grumpy yet have one of the best jobs in the world ain't life odd like that, sucks to be you happy guy that is not making games for a living! Oh wait the phone is ringing, yes was "Karma" leaving a message saying she'll be seeing me tomorrow for that shitty comment, please oh please let it be stubbing my toe on the wall I love that one so so much.

Onimusha 4 how you pique my curiosity yet bore me, thank goodness you have full english translation toggle in the options menu!

Ok that is plenty of rambling for tonight, I promise next time I will tell you about me and all that stuff that might actually get someone to care about reading this thing. Oh yeah I take requests too so if you want me to give my 2 cents on a game or donut (aplpe filled bear claw is top tier) just contact me by whatever electronic means you feel comfortable with attempting.

Future Topics will include:
Why Kill Bill should have been a game (the insiders dish dirt!)

the path of least resistance
http://www.baddesigns.com/path.html

test...

2005-09-16T02:57:00.000-07:00

zangief was here?