An indie Katamari clone?
The Wonderful End of the World
Add comment December 30th, 2007
Archive for December, 2007
3D game with simple art
Rumble Box by Insert Coin/DigiPen Institute of Technology
I see that DigiPen’s curriculum is very math and physics centric. Good to see game schools keeping up with the times.
Add comment December 28th, 2007
Am I am Art Director? Producer? Lead developer?
During the pre-production process of our first game, I’ve had to take on multiple roles… the positions of Art Director and Producer are the ones I’m least qualified for but have gradually learnt great deal about. With large teams on large projects, members eventually specialize and so rarely does any individual understand the entire game (technically + artistically) due to time constraints and lack of training. I’d say, all my artists current understand how to model, texture, rig and animate but some are better than others in each area. I also know how to perform 3D artist task, but am 5x-10x slower at it. However, none of the artists know how to code and programming resources are scarce and will continue to be during the pre-production phase.
For reference, here is Raph Koster’s llst of typical game development roles which I think is fantastic. You can see how teams of 50-100 people aren’t unreasonable in modern AAA games.
Roles often get combined.
* Business owner (often called exec producer)
Manages:
* Process owner (often called producer or director)
* Vision owner (often called director or producer, sometimes lead designer)
Those two may be the same person. May not. They manage, directly or indirectly:
* Manager of programmers (often called technical director or lead programmer)
* Manager of artists (often called art director)
* Manager of designers (often called lead designer)
Each of these then can have a team:
* Specialty lead (lead client programmer, lead systems designer, lead animator, etc)
* Specialists (systems designer, scripter, environment artist, rigger, UI programmer)
Sound and music often use centralized or outsourced resources, so you may or may not have in the mix:
* SFX people
* Composer
* Cutscene people
Then there’s QA, marketing, etc, but typically these have their own management tree.
Typical specialties:
* Rendering: the compelx programming required to get pictures on the screen.
* Network programming:programming for network based play is its own speciality.
* Database programming: so is programming to interact with databases.
* Engine programming: usually the guts of how a game works.
* Gameplay programing: usuallysystems specific to a game.
* UI programming: usually someone has to be devoted to just the HUD and controls.
* Tools programming: every team has someone who makes tools for everyone else. Maya exporters, placement tools, etc.
* FX programming: stuff like particle systems often consume insane amounts of time.
* Systems design: designing how the gameplay will actually work.
* Game balance: running numbers, mostly. A highly valuable (and rare) subspecialty.
* User interface design: often pushed off on artists or lead designers.
* Behavioral scripting: adding new game behaviors — this is what we usually think of as “scripting designers.”
* Writing: what it says on the tin.
* Content design (quest writing, itemization, etc): filling in data in tables, usually.
* Level design: map building. Straddles the line between art and design, usually.
* Texturing: making pretty textures.
* Technical artist: may write shaders in code. May help set the tech specs for the art.
* Modeling: making 3d meshes.
* Rigging: setting them up to animate.
* Animating: actally animating them. These two are not the same thing, and some people ar ebetter at one than the other.
* Environment creation: a specialty of artist that is good at making places.
* Lighting: oftne pushed off on one artist, but there’s a bunch of chops required.
* Foley: sound effects.
* Music
Add comment December 28th, 2007
Indies beware….
If you infringe on a copyright or trademark, you will be sued:
Fear not! The author is working on a new project that will trump Plasma Pong in awesomeness! Stay tuned. ”
from PlasmaPong.com which makes me think our draconian IP laws need some flexibility for non-commercial / experimental games. IP laws regarding satire and parody are also very complicated.
See this lawsuit for why this logo can get you in serious trouble.
And also Yahotties and “Ford, where finding a job is job 1″ lawsuits
Add comment December 28th, 2007
Logitech avatar video effects
I teach my students that the joystick and keyboard are not the only input devices around. The future is in unobstrusive devices like cameras and motion sensing controls that don’t have 12 buttons, three control sticks and require hours of learning to use.
These retards are a poor marketing face on a great product:
Add comment December 27th, 2007
My 60 year old parents have started playing the Wii…
which means one of two things:
- Nintendo marketing + brand awareness has hit iPod levels.
- WiiSports + Wii controller are better than sliced bread.
Add comment December 27th, 2007
A blog dedicated to game industry venture capital deals
Click here for some surprising (gorwing) numbers happening in the game biz
Add comment December 25th, 2007
Raph Koster thinks “All games are services now”
And that means:
- Branding
- Celebrity
- Lifestyle marketing
- Upsell-driven revenues
The main argument for it is that he thinks “content is worth zero” - brand, celebrity status, etc. are worth more than content. I think this is only partially true because while “There is little correlation between quality and day one sales” we always need the next Harry Potter, A Series of Unfortunate Events, His Dark Materials, etc. to make another film, game, TV spinoff from.
All this leads me to believe that the risk-takers (aka content makers) need to develop from lower-cost industries like novels, indie games, indie music, short films, etc… or from giants like Pixar, EA, Ubisoft making big bets across multiple medias: games, film, books much like Assassin’s Creed, Halo 3, Cars.
Add comment December 24th, 2007
Could this be the start of the decline of the PC FPS?
Sales of UT3 and Crysis are very poor.
33,995 and 86,633 are pretty pathetic.
Add comment December 24th, 2007
Top Google search terms in 2007
1. iphone
2. webkinz
3. tmz
4. transformers
5. youtube
6. club penguin
7. myspace
8. heroes
9. facebook
10. anna nicole smith
According to the Today Show + Google via Electric Sheep Company
Add comment December 24th, 2007