Them Vs. Us

Unrelated Image

Last time I wrote a bit about how getting players to wave their phone around like ninnies wasn't surest approach to create great games.

This week I thought I'd try to write a bit about the creative process of coming up with a game idea. Or rather, to be precise, as I don't have a process, to discuss what happened (as opposed to rolling my face around on my keyboard and posting the results).

However, before we go any further, lets back up. You may be reading this expectantly, as is human nature, assuming that this bread crumb of game design meanderings will lead to pot of gold. It wont. It'll be a pot of tin at best.

So despite my promises (which, politician that I am, lie broken at my feet) we reenter my game design process at a juncture where I still hadn't given up on making players wave their phones around like ninnies.

My Kindgom for a Game Design Document

One of the struggles with this project has been working out exactly what I want to make. Another struggle has been to figure out how much I want to compromise or deviate from my original vision.

The first thing I wrote originally was a simple test which allowed me to toss a square around on my phone. I spent a while trying to get the feel right, measure the forces involved, and come up with a system that tossed the square when a player deliberately jolted the phone, and not when the feeble shaking of their hands triggered it.

With that out of the way and proven (technically), I had to sit down and assess the tech, my ability and my chosen control mechanic, and work out what I was going to make.

Sticking to what you know

One thing I discovered was that when working from base principles like that, my mind quickly harks back to what I've already created. I'm like an Igor, constantly rooting round in the graveyard of my past projects looking for useful components I can add to the current corpse to make it live.

Some of my first ideas resembled the first game I ever made, which itself resembled Arkanoid crossed with Space Invaders, with some basic physics and a wrecking ball. While admittedly promising on paper, I never really managed to make the most out of that one.

A match-three-of-a-kind game

What followed next looked a lot like my first commercial game for Jagex: Geoblox.

Last post I mentioned a concept for a platformer, steered by motion controls (tossing the phone), in which the character would witness or visit historic or important moments in world history running as a video collage in the background.

My main concern with that project - other than that people might have been upset at having the Crucifixion or the Civil Rights movement appear as the background for a mobile game - was that the motion controls lacked sufficient precision. I felt that a platformer which might require precise controls would just be to frustrating. Plus I might be stoned.

Hating what you know

Button Moon

The problem with missing a jump in a platformer is that it either results in death, or worse it requires players to retread old ground repeatedly. I wanted to have a game where being slightly off wasn't going to be the source of frustration - instead it need be only a nuisance the player would have to take into account as they progress. Geoblox was all about shapes hitting a disk. They never miss the disk, instead they might land in the wrong place, however you can make amends later down the line. I started to think about throwing shapes at a disc instead.

Something that is never far from mind is Button Moon, which really has one of those "does what it says on the tin" titles. I love the setting and, though it's not something I intend to pilfer for this project, it caused me to quickly fall for the notion of making the disk a planet. A planet with gravity and other things that planets have.

When Tetris block attack...

Thanks to Button Moon's impact on my childhood the Geoblox clone quickly morphed into a concept about planetary space colonisation!

I already had prototypes where the player could chuck a square around, but now the square took on a new significance. It became an apartment block. Just toss 'em down and build 'em up was the new mantra.

Each block would contain a social group: jocks, goths, geeks, well adjusted people etc. The geeks would love to be next to other geeks and not like living near jocks. The location, both in terms of neighbouring blocks and scenery, would determine the points you got for the block.

A homogenous society 

It's an idea I still love. As I look out my window, it seems clear to me that society is gradually becoming more homogenised. As we're able to commute to work, to our hobbies, to our friends, we don't have any need to socialise with people who are not like us. Those unlike us hold conflicting views, have or don't have faith, they value different attributes, eat differently, talk funny and probably smell.

Why make the effort to talk to your neighbour when they probably don't agree with you and it'll be such effort to make a connection. Plus they're probably an alien anyway! You don't need to talk to your neighbour, instead you go to work full of people who were hired for having similar background and attributes to yourself. When you go home you can chat on your computer to people with whom you share a common background or you can go out to your interest group where people all like the same things you do.

Maybe you disagree violently with me one this, but lets face it: you're wrong just like everyone else not like me. It says so on the wiki page about you.

I still have a desire in me to make a game about social groups and how I think they interact. However it's an idea which I've had to wave goodbye to. More on that another time.

Tossing all over the free world

I am making an iPhone game. Here follows some of my thoughts on the process so far. I can't vouch for complete historical accuracy, but I hope at least it will entertain.

I've spent the past four years working at Jagex on the FunOrb website - in fact you may know me from such hits as Geoblox, Tomb Racer and Miner Disturbance. No?

Of the two, I am the dodo

As the industry has changed over the past five years, so did my job.  And inflexible fossil that I am, I decided that like the dodo it was time for me strike out on my own.

The Start

It's hard not to start a project without visions of megalomania; herald angels announcing your new project to the world, women trembling, men fainting - upheavals in the very cosmos brought about by your act of creation. You speak, and behold there is Game!

However reality is not like that. To paraphrase an old testament passage: Our god is in heaven and he does what he pleases. He is not manifest on earth making iPhone games.

Instead, even the act of coming up with a game idea is actually hard work, and even before that choosing which platform to dominate is tough. As I mentioned in my post on choosing wine, it's good to start any adventure by arbitrarily discarding vast quantities of options simply because you don't like the French.

Why? Do you believe in free choice?! This is one of the few moments you may genuinely and arbitrarily rule as you please. Yours are the consequences, yours is the power!

So with some good and arbitrary reasons I decided I was going to make an iPhone game. I knew I could target three platforms with relative ease and without having to invest heavily in hardware: iOS (so iPhone 4 primarily as I own one and I want to make it pay for itself), the Web (which I always feel is bit like trying to set up stall on a dump - hookers to the left, felines to the right, here I am; buy my game) and Mac OS.

Well, the money said the money's on iOS, so like every other halfwit with a text editor and a vague grasp of Von Neumann machines I decided to head for the place where there were very reliable reports that the streets were paved with gold (and in tribute to Marx the toilets too).

The Goal

A few people have presumed I have some sort of fixation with masturbation when I tell them that the initial game concepts revolved around tossing the phone. The rest assumed I was some sort of Android subversive; writing a game which would cause iPhone owners to break their phones while playing - like so many Wiimotes not so long ago.

Not what I was aiming for

I had a dream. A dream of doing what no one else had really pulled off. A dream of using the accelerometer to control the game by tossing (or perhaps more politely: jolting) the phone.

I was going to create a new genre! A new experience! I was going to revolutionise not only the way we play games, but also the very way we experience reality - like some sort of Will Wright crossed with Immanuel Kant!

However, as so often is the issue when I design iPhone games, the basics of the human body undid me!

Hold your hand in front of you as if you were holding an iPhone 4. Don't use two hands to hold your imaginary object of desire; it's not that heavy.

Now toss it forward. Don't let go, it's expensive and you can never trust the insurance to pay up these days.

If you do this repeatedly and observe your forearm, you'll notice that you're probably not moving your hand in a straight line, but an arc. Unless somehow you're using your shoulder to achieve the motion, in which case you're weird, but I may have a great game idea for you.

Your toss isn't that controlled. It instinctively moves in an arc defined by the length of your forearm, and there's not a lot of comfortable directional control there - try for instance throwing your imaginary phone across your body. Performing that action for just a short period of time probably gives you the sense that it's not the best control mechanism for a game.

I do believe that toss controls are the way forward - and perhaps there was just something wrong with my code (or arm), but after months of playing around with them a friend remarked that he'd just rather use his fingers.

More on that next time. Till then I leave you with that which fell by the way side. A game where you controlled the motion of your heroic blue block as he tried to rescue the weak and feminine red block by tossing the phone. Actually when I visualised that idea, I decided I wanted a close up of Martin Luther King Jr. looping in the background. The game was going to visit or call to mind historical moments in time from the Crucifixion to the Civil Rights movement. Perhaps it's best it never got much further than that drawing.

On the western front

I've been relatively tardy with updates recently. In all honesty I've been busy! What's your excuse?

In fact I've just finished writing my first Python program and I've also been working on a game using the Corona Game Engine. The latter has required me to learn Lua and patience. I hope to blog about Corona and game development in the future, so look out for that... or heckle me. Until then, I recommend it, but also caution care.

For the time being, I just want to leave you with a view of The Sartorialist, perhaps the only other life I'd love to live:

His is a world I pine for. Everything from the city he inhabits to the talent he possesses I desire. And what's more, what a talent! A talent which does not elevate him as much as it does them. You rarely see his face, yet so often you marvel at how interestingly, wonderfully or bizarrely his subjects are dressed. He is their reward for their efforts. What's more, like wildlife photographers whose pictures stun you with the beauty of the world, his pictures make people and their places look great. I'm reminded of the Pixar improv philosophy: "Make others look good".

In my daily toil, I tend to focus on making myself look good. This is not necessarily at the expense of others, and not necessarily consciously; its a habit - like a monk I bow to my routine. However, though it perhaps isn't something I am aware of, I do measure myself against one and all. If on the whole I feel I look better than those around me; I feel good, if on the whole I feel others look better than I do; I feel bad. And looking better isn't entirely a factor of fashion, but takes into account physical strength, mental dexterity, quality of character and anything else by which you care to judge yourself against your fellow man.

The Pixar improvisation philosophy, as discussed by Randy Nelson - and the very function of The Sartorialist - is one where the onus is on breaking with that unconscious desire to elevate oneself and instead to elevate others.

Think briefly: if your picture appears on The Sartorialist are you upset? No! You know you're going to look great. Unlike so many websites which might be out to take you for a fool, he's taken your picture because he thinks you stand out as something visually interesting, a delight to be shared with the world.

In Pixar improvisations, Randy tells us, you open your mouth and you know that others are going to try to make you look great. They are there to support you and you are there to support them.

Some times there is so much emphasis on self-achievement and self-discovery it seems that the approaches of both are alien; a world in which they dominate: beyond our comprehension. Wouldn't it be great if when you leave your house the next time, you knew those around you were out to support you and help you do what you do best?

I guess do unto others....

Play Love, Not War

The look of Love

Quite a while ago, when I was a wee lad learning to bend the English language to my whim - master of the lexical fields that I am - my teacher placed this upon my mind: "If you want to write better books, read better books".

The idea is easy enough to rebuff, but there's some truth there. You won't aim to write like Milton unless you've read Milton. His themes, turns of phrase and whatnot, simply won't be accessible to you. You will lack the inspiration of Milton and the aspiration to be Milton (or better). As you can probably tell: I've never read Milton - and so my use of language is not touched by his apparent genius.

In someways the rule is incomplete. In a great article on Visual Vocabulary, Aaron Diaz explored the notion that you must push yourself to draw new shapes and forms, so that when brainstorming new ideas they'll be accessible to your imagination.

Perhaps the rule should be: "If you want to write better books, read better books, and then become proficient with their style". This isn't a call for creatives to become shadows of the greats, but a notion that by experiencing and regurgetating someone else's work to a reasonable standard, you absorb some of their tools and ideas to use for your own alien purposes.

To stand on the shoulders of giants, you must first eat their flesh! In fact there was a fascinating article on game design which inspired this post: Against Dilettantism by Jack Monahan. The section that interests me most is the story of Richard Garriott:

Like virtually everyone operating in some aspect of the fantasy realm, he was enamored of J.R.R. Tolkien.

The difference between Garriott and most other authors or designers in love with the Lord of the Rings is that Garriott didn't just read Tolkien in order to understand what Tolkien did, Garriott researched all the things that Tolkien researched. 

This dodges that fatal generation loss that comes from making your own copy of a good thing--which is that it is worse for being an imperfect copy, a copy of a copy ... Garriott followed his idol correctly. If you want to be like Tolkien, immerse yourself in the primary sources he used to create his definitive fantasy world and synthesize your own influences as well; simply reading Tolkien and changes place names or plot points won't cut it.

In order to create the ultimate Tolkienesque experience, Garriott ensured that he stood on the same shoulders as Tolkien.

Now Garriott, it seems, aimed to be like Tolkien, but imagine if he wanted to be Tolkien plus Mark Twain? By consuming both one can aspire to be that sum of the products.

I wish more people were like Garriott, if you're going to copy, copy well. Put your back into it! However do more than that! Don't just read cheap Sci-Fi, don't just draw fantasy, don't just copy Call of Duty!

If you want to make better games, read better books, draw better pictures, play Love not war!

Dear Diary...

I've started trying to keep tabs on the wines and spirits that I drink. Not because I worry I've a problem, but because I can never remember what I like.

You want the red

When presented with the vast armies of wines that I haven't tried, grapes that I'm ignorant of and wine producing nations I didn't know existed (I mean where on earth is Côtes du Rhône? Near France?), I traditionally select a bottle from the shelf using this patented approach:

1. Ignore everything that isn't Italian. Don't ask why, just do it! Hey presto and volia! (as the Italians say) You've suddenly reduced your pool of potential purchases down from all the wines produced in the world, to just those made in Italy. France? Shaddap your face!
2. Disregard all whites. That's not a racial statement, but the simple recognition that white wines are delicate little darlings, volatile little violets, that are not worth investing in. If you've gone to a wine store, you really want something you can club your dinner guests to death with, which a good red will most happily do. Unless you're serving fish.
3. Look at the labels. Do they make you laugh? Do they look expensive? Do they make you want to be the kind of person who would buy the kind of bottle with the kind of label which you just so happen to be looking at? Really at this stage, it's purely subjective, but if the label or any other aspect of wine's presentation offends your deeply held sense of aesthetics - discard it like a useless lover.
4. Pick your price. Excuse my hypocrisy here, but I am terrible at this. Decide that you want a wine between £5-£10 and don't budge! I used to go in for £5 bottles and come out with £10 bottles. Now I go in for £10 bottles and come out with £15 ones.

You are welcome to adapt this technique to suit your own vanities and vendors. 

You'll have noticed that while it is a largely scientific process - repeatable across infinite sets of wine - it has no sense of history. That is unless you have a good memory - you might wind up repeatedly buying the same terrible white which step 2 should have eliminated anyway so why don't you pay attention for once in your life or do I write these words for purely my own amusement? 

To solve the aforementioned issue of my limited memory (and your limited attention span) I bring to you The Wine Diary! Unfortunately not the wine dairy, which is still subject to that age old GM debate.

The notion is that upon finishing a bottle, you peel/rip the label off the bottle, stick it to something you can write on - like your monitor - and note down what you thought of it. That way you can learn that white wines are not worth buying and that actually you want the far more bolshy red wines with a hint of violence hidden beneath the tannins, by looking at your own notes.

In fact we can start right now! Copy this down 30 times: "I do not like white wine, I never have and all memories of enjoying white wine are purely delusions. I only like good strong red wine. I should see someone about those delusions"

Open up! This is raid...

I am a huge fan of Wilco's Wilco (The Album). I'm not sure what their other stuff is like, but tracks like Wilco (The Song) and I'll Fight are everything I want from a steel stringed rock song. It all sounds soft and real. It's the kind of music that fits a scene. You're drinking strong coffee in a dinner as you stare out across the overcast skies that press heavily on the plains before you. It's music for the lull in the journey.

Mavis Staples We'll Never Turn Back was all about the journey on the other hand. About the journey from being locked up by "southern racists cops" to seeing Hurricane Katrina expose the old divides and cry out: "99 and a half won't do".

                              +     

Now whereas that album was produced by Ry Cooder, along comes Mavis's latest produced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy: You're Not Alone. The title track alone is worth the price of admission. To me it's about a frustrated cry: "Open up this is a raid, I wanna get it through to you, you're not alone". Open up! 

What's refreshing too is that Mavis has moved from the civil rights themes of We'll Never Turn Back to strong gospel themes. It's familiar, but different. It's nice to see an artist develop, rather than pump "what worked last time" for another cache of gold.

Songs such as In Christ There Is No East Or West or Don't Knock are wonderfully spiritual and intimate. Intimate's a word that's bandied about a lot, but whereas so many Gospel efforts seem to focus on huge numbers of voices and gun for the scale - Tweedy keeps things simple and warm. Listening to the former track now, it feels like she could be performing in the lounge with me. There's a lovely feel about the album - it's like homemade jam. You feel people could make this with you and you could join in.

It's a great album and, while it's not had the plays for me to know for sure, I think it'll be one I'll keep coming back to.

Realm of the Mad Dog

I'm not really sure if I can recommend Realm of the Mad Dog. By every metric it provides, I've failed.

I've failed to reach level 20 with a mage. I've failed to reach level 20 with a warrior. I've failed to reach level 20 with a rogue. I came close with an archer, but failed.

Has a history of failure

In fact the game itself has has a mean streak: it nearly gave me RSI because it didn't deign to commend the autofire toggle to me during the tutorial; 2000 clicks later and my wrist was fused to the trackpad. And what do you get for 2000 clicks? Ample recognition that you clicked 2000 times and failed.

Perhaps I am not worthy to recommend it.

Realm of the Mad God, as it's rightly known (and ROMG as it'll be referred to hence forward) shares a lot in common with arcade favourite Gauntlet.

In Gauntlet you could gang up with whatever friends you could scrounge together (max 4) to try to beat the game. As in ROMG, you never really knew what you were doing; clearly you were throwing swords at monsters, but what's your motivation? As in ROMG, you needed other players for safety, yet the gits kept making off with the food and items you so clearly coveted. As in ROMG, death featured quite heavily (though Gauntlet takes the biscuite for making him an adversary).

Awarded Most-Like-ROMG award

Unlike Gauntlet's cramped rooms, ROMG's world is a pretty sizeable, monster infested Realm. While it's too structured to be the creation of the titular Mad God, the vast monster population does point to some issues which which will need to be adressed through therapy. Unlike Gauntlet's puny 4 player limit, ROMG opens up the doors, in a slightly Mad way, to a full 80 players at any one time.

That's 79 potential thieves! 79 buggers actively trying to make off with the armour you so desperately need.

Other players are thieves

Given the sizeable number of monsters, it's advisable to swarm the world in packs. ROMG actively encourages this by generously handing out experience points (XP) to anyone in the vicinity of a monster's death. Live vicariously, and grow too! You want XP because it makes you more powerful: it pushes your character from the puny level 1 mage he started out as, towards the utopian level 20 mage you desire [pervert].

However ROMG is not so generous with its loot. This is not shared! You want the healing potion? Well so does Joe679 and he just got it before you! Better be on your toes next time!

Suddenly ROMG is full of players who are quite happy to hide in large groups, being blessed by undeserved XP from heaven, but - at the drop of a well padded bag of loot - they will charge past a pack Minotaurs to reach a sack of bronze helmets first. Such foolish actions will usually result in death.

One word about death: permanence. Your characters do stay dead, you'll have to start from level 1 all over again. Now stand back and let the daisies grow. There's something about sucking the air through your teeth and wondering to yourself: "Do I want to do that all over again", which is sort of refreshing.

Perhaps the truly crazy thing about the game is that you don't play it to defeat the Mad God. That can happen at pretty much the start of your game if you join a server near the end of the cycle. Instead your goal is to reach that pedestal of perfection: to climb to the mighty heights of level 20. I don't know what happens when you reach level 20. Does your character explode in a ball of light and instantly transcend the fabric of the realm? Do they escape to a nirvana populated by titans where they rule over the very forces of good and evil? Probably. I've never got there.