Archive for November, 2007
Jon Blow talks about “Scheduled rewards” in his recent Montreal International Game Summit talk..
He says:
Some examples of these “scheduled rewards” are collectibles, unlockables, achievements or advancing the story — the player wants to beat the boss monster so they can see what happens to Joe when he walks through the next door.
“Sometimes we take this really far,” Blow noted. “MMOs are notorious for having relatively empty gameplay, but keeping players hooked with constant fake rewards – this creates ‘the treadmill.’ Rewards are a way of lying to the player so they feel good and continue to play the game.” He noted some extreme examples of this, such as reported incidents of Chinese or Korean MMO players dying at the computer.
Well, scheduled rewards is the core element to getting humans addicted. By providing positive feedback at irregular intervals the human player becomes addicted. regardless if the player enjoys the experience or not.
Game designer confuse addiction with “good” - they are not the same. Casual games are addictive. Gambling is addictive. Drugs are addictive… are any of these, socially valuable?
November 27th, 2007
3D games make up the bulk of console game sales just like 3D animated films make up the bulk of animated box office receipts… but are they better than 2D?
Unfortunately I have to say no…
The reason studios are making 3D games is because there is a premium associated with them. Consumers are willing to pay more for 3D than 2D. About 8 years ago you could have come up with any animated 3D show idea and made a killing (i.e. charge $500k per episode). There was a premium for 3D content due to the success of ReBoot and the overall difficultly/cost of making an 3D show.
Fast-forward 5 years and the entire market (broadcaster-driven sales) dried up… you’d be lucky to receive $100K per 3D episode. Now all studios are reverting back to making 2D animated shows because:
- They are cheaper (by a large factor)
- They are better (less worrying about technology and look)
In about 5-10 years, we’ll see 3D become so commonplace that it no longer can charge for a premium and then 2D games will make a return… or at least a 2D/3D mix will make a return. On the Wii this is true already - fancy 3D graphics are no longer the key selling point. Certain games will remain 3D like all first person shooters and sports games. Everything else will blur the boundaries:
- Super Paper Mario
- Crush
- Echochrome
- Okami
- Viewtiful Joe
In the interim, we have to deal with the “Flashing Triangles” problem - low budget 3D art to workaround the expensive of making 3D models/textures. In the future, 3D game art will be much easier to create due to better/mature exporters to more universally accepted game engines… i.e. Flash version 20 with 3D.
November 24th, 2007
It’s great to see satirical (non-serious mature) games become more mainstream thanks to the support of Adult Swim who as I recall actively requested for indie game developer to submit concept and paid for their development.
Bible Fight is pretty funny too - if not completely tasteless:
Adult Swim is also the home of one of the great animated shows - The Boondocks:
Attack of the Killer Kung Fu Wolf Bitch
November 22nd, 2007
I teach 3D graphics programming and I’ve noticed the transition from 2D to 3D is separated by a large chasm only one with the power of Neo from the Matrix could jump….
So what’s so hard about the 3D?
What you draw is not what you get
2D artists (I’ve worked with many of them in the animation business) think that you can just draw anything and make it look the way they “imagined it.” Well, there is the “Mickey Mouse ear problem” that demonstrates the fallacy of this idea. Mickey Mouse’s ear can NOT be modeled in the 3D as is because Mickey Mouse’s ears are ALWAYS circles facing the camera.
This is just the tip of the problems. Many concept drawings can not be modeled efficiently in 3D. The best 3D modelers I’ve known are sculptors who understand shape + form. Illustrators make for poor modelers.
The math is weird
From quaternions to 4×4 transformation matrices with roots in projective geometry… this is not stuff you use day to day. Most students have basic understanding of vector mathematics, but not enough deeper understanding of matrices + quaternions + the math underlying geometric representations.
The art is “hard”
After modeling is completed there is EVEN more work to do:
Rigging
Weighting
Shading/texturing
Animation
Exporting
Much of it is very technical in nature and I doubt it will change in the future. It will get simpler (shading/texturing + animation), but certain things will remain complicated like weighting. 3D is truly for craftspeople… artists will paint.. hacks will photograph (sorry, I had to take potshots at photographers).
But in the end, is 3D that much more complicated than watercolour or clay sculpting or mosaics? Not really because each of those sub-areas require their own special skills / techniques. The problem with 3D is that it is new and is not tactile - our interface is the keyboard and mouse.
3D game logic requires 10x the work than in 2D
2D drawing - easy
2D gameplay - easy, limited by imagination
2D collision - easy
2D physics - hard, but manageable.
3D art - hard
3D gameplay - hard
3D hard - really hard
3D physics - fuggaboutit
New 3D game developers don’t realize that creating 3D models and throwing them into an engine is only 20% of the work. You need to create collision meshes, pathfinding meshes, level of detail meshes, shadow geometry, visibility hulls, 3D cameras, 3D controls, particles, etc.
November 20th, 2007
I’ve been thinking about how many console games naturally assume many hardcore “verbs” like:
- Double jumping
- Headshots
- Movable crates used to solve puzzles
- Levers / Switches
- Bosses who move in obviously stupid patters exposing weak spots
- Move combos
- How fire attacks are better against ice creatures
- How ice attacks are better against fire creatures
- Hiding out of sight automatically makes you safe from the enemy
- Coins and stars are for collecting
- Barrels + crates + chests are for smashing for treasure.
- Pipes transport you into a different world
We as game designers and developers forget newbies haven’t learnt the grammar of hardcore games. It frustrates me because certain games (cough, cough - God of War) are full of them and when you haven’t been playing hardcore games for a while you forget that the crate in front of you is lying their for NO REASON WHATSOEVER EXCEPT TO SOLVE SOME RIDICULOUS PUZZLE.
November 20th, 2007
A quick and dirty release that adds the latest Box2d functionality and fixes compile issues with half checked-in code.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/musicala/
The CVS version should be fully up-to-date and non-busted now. New Box2d/LineWorld binaries are also up.
November 4th, 2007