Brent Knowles's Blog, page 7

Game Design Advice on the Cheap

Just a quick note that “How to be a lead designer” is available for $0.99 (today only, I think though it will be at a lower price for about a week before climbing back to its normal price point).

http://www.amazon.com/Lead-Designer-Lazy-Game-Design-ebook/dp/B00JUYRB18/

Also a story reprint of mine, ‘The Monastery’, is now free to read over at Amazon. It was originally published in ‘Not One of Us’.

http://www.amazon.com/Monastery-Sabriel-Book-1-ebook/dp/B0052OJAZ0/

I have a bit longer of a post in the works describing what I’m up to and such but for now a quick summary will suffice:

- I have a couple weeks left on the current novel (rough draft)

- I’d like to start a middle-grade children’s book next month

- My newsletter is serializing the first book of the lazy designer (http://blog.brentknowles.com/brents-mailing-list/)

- I’m continuing work on both http://fiction.brentknowles.com/ and my Hauler Unity game prototype.

Hope you are all having a good week. Got questions? Ask ‘em!

My Fiction Site

Because I like to fiddle I’ve rolled out a new fiction site — a showcase of my published work. It now supports reviews and excerpts too.

fiction.brentknowles.com

Unlike past sites, I’ve built myself an admin page to easily add projects. Because it is really only a couple php and json files I imagine it could be used by others, once I cleaned things up a bit. Let me know if you might be interested and I’ll try to help you set it up now (manually) or prioritize building a setup script for my next month’s sprint/workload.

You can explore some rough documentation at:

YourOtherMind

GitHub

Reminders

Fun stuff is starting to happen on my newsletter. Sign up if you want. Also note that I have a few specialized lists if you really only want to know when I have new fiction out and such (i.e., you don’t want the game design stuff or you don’t want the writing stuff or you just want to receive review copies).

Reviews

Some of my game design books have been out for quite a while. If you have read and enjoyed them I would really appreciate a review (reviews help bring in new readers… which will encourage me to continue doing this whole freelancing thing a bit longer). Here’s the link to reviews for the first book. Thanks!

Game Hauler Version 2 (Part 3 / ?)

Welcome to Part 3 in my new series describing my “Hauler” prototype. Links to the web and PC version are at the bottom of this post. (And you can read Part 2 here, if you haven’t).

Note: This is a repost (originally appeared on Gamasutra).

Prototype 2 (build# 0.0.3.0)

The two main issues brought up in the previous version (aside from the obvious like art and sound) were both related to gameplay.

The first issue was that the tails were too long. This version doesn’t overly address this, but it does try to solve the second issue (which helps mitigate the first). The second issue? There was no gameplay.

Effectively all the player did was drive around and try to make the other player crash while a crude hit counter incremented.

This version adds some gameplay via:

Points. Players score points by collecting powerups. These powerups appear randomly on the screen.
Health. Players now have a health meter. They want to accrue points while minimizing the loss of health.
Game Over. Once one player takes enough damage for their health to reach zero the game restarts but with the point total kept. This way players can challenge one another to matches, with an overall score also accumulating.

The Point system evolved a bit between the previous build and this. I initially tracked only wins. At first the player who killed the other player got a ‘win’. This count persisted between matches so that players were effectively competing for win counts. Then I added the first phase of the scoring system and the player who had the most points at the end of a round got the win (regardless of who died first — though the player who survived did get a point bonus).

After this I realized I probably didn’t need the win count (at least not on the in-game interface) and removed it in favor of just showing the score.

Why Did I Add A Score System?

The moment a point system exists, the player has a motivation to actually do anything. A comment on my blog regarding the previous version of Hauler aptly noted that the best strategy was to stay still. Not playing gave the player the highest likelihood of surviving!

Clearly I did not want this game to focus on do-nothing gameplay. So a point system was a reasonable first step towards expanding gameplay.

Other Improvements
Start Menu

There is now a start menu. It doesn’t do much… all the buttons just bring the player into the game. But hey! It’s a start :)

This was added in preparation for later sprints. Both as an experiment with out-of-game menu code and to start me thinking about how the start menu should look. Over the next few builds it undergoes a fair bit of revision.

Active Ability

Some powerups do not give the player points but instead grant the player an ability (jump or speed). When the player collects these, they can then press the spacebar to consume the powerup and activate the ability.

I added this to encourage some variant gameplay (even though these two abilities are not overly impressive, nor do they help — activating them makes it harder for the player!) In a later version I intend to expand on this (though as of this writing — and being several versions ahead — I have yet to make this a priority for any sprint.)

Issues

Gameplay is still not strong. The powerup point system provides some measure of incentive to play, but it’s not fun enough. There’s nothing clever going on here, nor any reason for a person to play the game other than as a very brief and forgettable activity.

In the next sprint I add a new gameplay layer that will eventually become the driving force between the game (i.e., why I call it Hauler). That implementation is still flawed in many ways, which you’ll see when I post the next entry in the series, but I feel it is a marked improvement over this build.

Play It

Play on the web: Version 0.0.3.0

Download a PC version: Download 

THOUGHTS/FEEDBACK

If you play the prototype and have some thoughts regarding it, let me know via the comments and we can discuss them (or I can incorporate the discussion into a later post).

Preface: How to Start a Career in Game Design

Here’s the preface for the original Lazy Designer book. I’m posting this here as a supplement to my serialization of the Lazy Designer via my newsletter. If you would like to read “How to Start a Career in Game Design” then go and sign up now; the first post will hit this weekend.

Preface

Introduction

If you love building videogames and aspire towards a career in videogame development I can relate. I spent my childhood writing stories, creating imaginary worlds and building games but never thought a career in the industry would be possible. It just seemed too impossible.

I was wrong.

What to Expect

I had the pleasure of spending a decade working on top rated role-playing games with the games developer BioWare. I would like to share that experience with you.

Who is this book for?

This book is geared primarily towards those looking to start a career in the games industry. Specifically the book is about obtaining a design position (writer, level designer, game system designer) but the text should be of use to anyone entering the industry.

Practical advice on how to enter the industry leads into an exploration of what a bright and shiny new employee might expect in their early years in the games industry.

Later books will focus on design specializations, improving quality assurance, becoming a manager and other facets that I believe will be of more value to industry veterans.

This is not a book with any tricks or magical techniques that will make you a better videogame developer. I am a practical designer and in my time with BioWare I built high quality video games in reasonable time frames and with reasonable resources. This is not a design book. It is a book about becoming a capable designer and an asset to your team and to the company.

I will not go into great detail on how to design a game, the components used to build games, how game engines work, or even how to develop an emotionally engaging storyline from start to finish.

To be blunt I learned all those skills after I already had started employment with BioWare. Certainly my fiction writing and gaming experiences had prepared me with the basic skills I needed but I was a raw recruit.

I have since attended lectures and read several manuals on various design philosophies (some of which are referenced at the end of this book) and expanded my skills. But my practical work methodology and never-ending eagerness to learn is why I was constantly given new responsibilities early in my career and why I became a lead designer not long after starting work with BioWare.

There are no shortcuts when creating great games but you can improve your own skills by understanding how others, like myself, solved common problems in game development.

This book begins with a chapter on to how best prepare yourself for a videogame development career and how to find that first job. The next two chapters explore improving your skills and tackling the roadblocks you will encounter. After a discussion on how to design fun frustrations for players I end with a list of links to online references I have found useful in my own career.After reading this book you will know how to increase your chances of getting an interview, obtaining the job you want and excelling at the tasks given you.

I encourage you to read other design books, to master the nuts and bolts of gameplay and story and world-building. Those are important. But without a strong work ethic and the desire and ability to improve yourself and your project, you will not have the opportunity to put those other skills to the test.

What is a Game

At this point in most books of this nature the author usually writes a lengthly discussion of what a game is and offers some descriptions. Because there are many great books already covering that topic, I will not do so in any great detail.

Personally I think a videogame should have choices –interesting and entertaining choices and consequences for those choices. Most choices should influence the game’s narrative. But not all. Some choices should simply be amusing or should help the player gain ownership of the game world they are experiencing.

About the Lazy Designer series

Throughout this work I’ll make reference to other books in the Lazy Designer series. This is only the first book of what will eventually be five titles, each exploring a subset of the game development experience, mirroring my own career from new employee to specialist to manager. Later books will give advice on how to improve design skills, improve communication and balance work in life… all things I had to do as I moved onto my second project, the Neverwinter Nights franchise. Eventually, the final books will delve into my experiences as a design manager — my successes and my mistakes.Before we start delving into content I would like to make a couple points clear.

Feedback. I thrive on feedback. Please let me know when you find mistakes. My Contact Page has a variety of methods to reach me. I’m eager to know if there are topics you would like to see covered in later books, discussed on my blog, or even added to a later edition of this book. I want this to be a cooperative process where I’m learning as much as you.
You, the Reader. I will often delve into topics of a higher level than a new employee needs to know. I do this because this is what I am familiar with. For most of my career I was a manager. I also do it because I think it helps prepare you for when you yourself might be leading teams. Even if that is not something you aspire towards it might help you understand the influence behind the decisions that your manager makes.

Why Lazy?

I believe in enhancing the work experience, no matter the task I am engaged in.

There is a time for designers to roll up their sleeves and just get the work done but when possible I think it is important that designers understand how valuable their time is. Should you waste days doing a task that could be automated and completed in a couple minutes? Doesn’t it make more sense to devote your time to more creative tasks?

I believe in getting tools and procedures in place so that design effort is spent in the right way — making the game entertaining. In that regard I am lazy. I don’t want to do the hard, boring work. I want to work hard at the fun stuff.

Part 3 of my Unity prototype is available to read via Gamasutra (yes, I’ll be pulling it into this blog at a later date, but if you are impatient you can head over there to read it).

Newsletter Woes

Once again I’ve migrated my newsletter.

Most readers have been moved over to it. However there are a few users who signed up to previous versions of the newsletter that weren’t on that list.

If you did NOT receive a recent Newsletter mailing from me, then you are not signed up.

Head over here to enroll.

Why?

Well in the near future (i.e., once my newsletter’s subscription base grows a tiny bit more) I’m going to start serializing book 1 of the Lazy Designer via the list. Basically the entire book will be doled out in segments over the next couple months, hopefully with a bit of an update.

Also you get to hear about all the awesome things happening in my life first (and really what larger incentive could I provide than that?) Well… how about some free stuff (a short story collection and the design book of checklists).

Here’s the contents of that first newsletter, so you have an idea of what I’ll be distributing via it:

Brent’s Newsletter #1 — Welcome to the Newsletter

Sorry for the delay in sending out this first newsletter! I needed to get my ducks in a row (whatever that means) first.

As this is my very first newsletter here’s some guidance on what to expect from future issues.

CONTENT DELIVERY

The newsletter will:

- Be delivered roughly every two weeks.

- Present a mix of game design / writing information.

- Contain new content or added value (i.e., I intend to release the first book in the Lazy Designer series via this newsletter). I will also use this newsletter to broadcast my non-promotional blog content (i.e., new game design articles or writing howtos). These will generally provide a summary of the blog post and a juicy link you can click if you want to read the entire post.

- Allow for question and answer segments. If you have a game design or writing question you want answered, ask it via a blog comment, my Facebook page, or e-mail to me and I might feature it in an upcoming newsletter.

- Have actual content… I’ll minimize promotional shenanigans, keeping that more for the blog/twitter/et cetera. New releases will be announced here however.

Do you know anybody else who might be interested in my game design articles or my fiction? If so, I’m sure they’d be super pleased with you if you invite them to this list. Once I have sufficient subscribers I intend to start releasing Book 1 of the Lazy Designer via this newsletter.

The sign up form: http://blog.brentknowles.com/brents-mailing-list/

GAME: HAULER VERSION 1 (PART 2 / ?)

Welcome to Part 2 in my new series describing my “Hauler” prototype. Links to the web and PC version are at the bottom of this post. (And you can read Part 1 here, if you haven’t).

PROTOTYPE 1 (0.0.1.1)

In the previous post I discussed the many (and serious) issues I had with my first Hauler prototype. This latest version was basically a rebuild and, in addition to the front-facing changes, many internal details (reorganizing code) occurred too.

If you play the prototype you will notice that we now have:

New Movement Controls. The controls are more logical, with the player deciding which direction to travel, rather than adjusting orientation.
Background art. There’s some basic art in place that pretties up the prototype.
Proper Tail Code. The tail and its collision actually match up now, though there are still some issues with it.
Controller Works. Gamepads or controllers hooked up to the PC should function, both in gameplay and in the menu, including the ‘special ability’ button (currently this performs a jump action).
Simple Menu. Pressing escape invokes a restart/quit menu.
Ship Facing. The ship points the direction they are suppose to go and rotate correctly.

Issues

Obviously we are missing final art still. We are also missing music and sound effects. This is polish stuff and will be tackled later. More immediately concerning to me was:

Long Tails

The tails are long. Like really really long. Makes it awkward to get around very much.

Gameplay — Still Isn’t Good

Simply having an ‘arena battle’ style of gameplay is not sufficient. I had hoped with the improvements, between the last prototype and this, that it might be good enough without adding another gameplay layer. I was wrong and this prototype makes it clear.

In the next prototype I focus on adding more gameplay elements to the experience.

Wanna Play It?
Web Version

Web Version.

PC Version
Download 
Gallery

I also have a gallery page from which to easily review all my prototypes.

Thoughts/Feedback

If you play the prototype and have some thoughts regarding it, let me know via the comments and we can discuss them (or I can incorporate the discussion into the next post, which I plan to present sometime in late October).

Minecraft? Microsoft? (The Builder Generation?)

As I write this it is still only rumor that Minecraft may be sold to Microsoft, so my rambling here might be completely irrelevant (but what is the Internet for anyways, if not to host my rambles?)

Minecraft is a valuable product. I think in more ways than any other game, it has really infiltrated culture. Yes, games like Mario and Pokemon and the like are huge, but I don’t recall them having quite such a hold on kids (that said, I was not a parent during the rise of those franchises, so I may be mistaken). My sons and their friends play Minecraft-themed games all the time. By this, I don’t mean the computer game… I mean they play Minecraft on the playground, in the classroom. They talk about Minecraft all the time. They have Minecraft themed birthday parties. They make Minecraft crafts in the classroom.

As well, when they do play videogames, if the game even remotely resembles Minecraft (i.e., any first person sort of game) they immediately ask, “Can we do the things we do in Minecraft in this game?” Often, there is also an expectation of being able to construct things in the games they play. I believe Minecraft has heavily influenced this.

Will they grow out of playing Minecraft? Yes, I’m sure they will. Even now they don’t play it as much as they did (though partly this is because their mean parents have limited their time with the game). But I think some of the expectations it has created will remain with them. And let us be honest — as adults they probably will take a look at it every once in a while. I still play it, after all.

So… what’s my point regarding the acquisition of Minecraft by Microsoft?

I believe in the right hands, Minecraft is an eternal franchise, capable of generating revenue indefinitely. So I struggle to see why somebody would sell it. On the other hand, 2 billion dollars now is a lot of money! Heck, with that I could fund my undersea base-of-operations, complete with laser-sharks.

My worry is that Microsoft won’t be the “right hands” Minecraft requires in order to persist. Partly this won’t even their fault. Minecraft’s origin story is part of the mythos that makes Minecraft popular. The fact that Mojang is an independent game studio makes that story resonate more. Minecraft becoming just another product sku, as part of a massive corporation, diminishes that story. I suspect it may not end up being the ‘forever game’, I’ve predicted in the past. I hope I’m wrong.

Microsoft believes they can make the franchise bigger and I can anticipate ways in which they can make it work. We’ll see, I guess.

Game: Hauler Version 0 (Part 1)

As I mentioned I have started to work on an almost-game. I said I would start releasing prior milestones and discussing them and so this is the first of those discussions.

THE IDEA

Up until Spring 2014 I had been tinkering with a couple different prototypes, including one that I had put a lot of time into and really enjoyed (developing and playing). But I came to the realization that these games were too complicated for me to pull off on my own (at least for now). I need to expand my working knowledge of Unity first. I decided instead to work on a simpler game and push it all the way to release — even if it turned out to be a not-for-profit sort of activity.

I had about 10 hours a month to devote to this.

I went through my idea file and picked up on a concept that I had been thinking about for a while (really just a variation on an old game that I’m sure some of you will remember). I wanted a game that:

Was same-screen multiplayer & competitive (ideally no camera movement to worry about — think basic ‘arcade’ game)
Could be played on a big screen television
Allowed keyboard control but was designed for controller use.

So the game design tagline became: “Each player controls a craft and smashes said craft into other player’s crafts. The person who gets hit least, wins. Maybe.”

TIMELINE

You should always set some sort of timeline for your final deliverable even if you never tell anybody about it. You need to know this, to help you build all the milestones leading to release.

Sadly, I did not set such a date. Only recently did I make the decision that I would like to have the release version of the game out by year’s end (so I could start work on the next couch game). Which (giving estimate inflation), means probably in February 2015.

PROTOTYPE 0

(I’ll be upfront here… my prototypes for this project are not really prototypes. I am not throwing all of the code and assets away in between prototypes. I am building upon previous builds, in general, though the difference between this one, Prototype Zero, and the next is nearly a complete redo.)

So Prototype 0 features:

2 Players. Player 1 use uses the left and right arrows to rotate their craft. Player 2 uses the A and D keys to rotate their craft. (Controllers should work with this build too).
Scoring. Each time the player hits something, their count is incremented. So the goal here is to have the LOWEST score.

You can go play Prototype Zero here on the web (or download a PC exe, see link at page bottom). I realize it might be super duper engrossing and consume hours of your time, but please do try to return here to read the rest of the discussion.

ISSUES

Hey… you’re back. What’s not to love about that prototype, eh?

I am being sarcastic. This is terrible. I hadn’t actually looked at this since I archived it (not till I started to write this post). I thought the ‘hello world’ a nice touch.

Anyways, I almost skipped to the next build but decided this showed a nice example of a disposable (and disposed) prototype.

Despite its glaring flaws, the prototype does demonstrate my initial demands: a simple game concept that players could play against each other on a television screen.

But let’s delve into some of those glaring flaws.

Movement Controls

The rotation and “always moving” controls are fairly natural for this type of game but my kids were immediately turned off by them. They wanted the up arrow to move them up, the down arrow to move them down, et cetera. They found it hard to control their craft (yeah, I know, that was the point!)

Additionally the “tail” logic was wonky — you sometimes hit invisible trails and other times no collision is detected.

Still I figured I could make this more fun by changing up the controls.

You can also press the spacebar key (or ‘z’ for player 2) to “jump” your craft… right out of the arena (this was probably the most entertaining part of the prototype).

Instant Death

There isn’t actually instant death — or any death in this version — but I did play with the idea. But it really wasn’t fun to have 2 second long matches and constantly restarting. I wanted prolonged games that were about basing the score on some objective. This will factor in, with later builds.

Boring

Again, this was merely a prototype, but it was clear here that I needed to start thinking about a gameplay angle for the game. It might seem weird not to have a more concrete idea of what this would be, from the start, but I approached this entire project kind of sideways. As I tinkered, the core gameplay emerged — but not in this build or the next. You’ll have to keep reading to figure it out (though I suppose the game’s placeholder title might give it away a bit).

Visuals

Hey, I’ll say it so you don’t have to. The not-really-art sucks. And it still sucks, in the current build I’m working on today — several prototypes past the one I’m showing you. (Though I think it sucks significantly less; I’ll leave that to you decide later in this series). But right now my goal is to focus on gameplay and refine what I have, till I think it is as fun as possible given other constraints. If I felt this game could be successful (and I don’t) I would invest in a complete art redo. We’ll talk about this more, in later posts.

When prototyping, don’t hinder yourself (or waste time) by developing awesome assets. In all likelihood when you change core direction (as I did) said assets will only be tossed. Only with later stage prototypes that might influence whether you get funding, should you really start worrying about things like this, or in art-heavy projects, where part of the prototype process involves understanding how expensive the art assets are going to be to produce.

Spoiler Alerts

In the next post I’ll delve into the many changes I made, but it should be clear from what I wrote above that I ended up gutting everything. This prototype really became an example of what I didn’t want to do — despite my initial thoughts. The biggest changes coming up involve the control systems.

Summary

Well that’s it for now. I’ll do a follow up post with the new improved control scheme late September or in October. If you have any questions (about this or game design in general) please feel free to post comments here. I look forward to hearing from you!

Again, the link to the web demo is here and the pc version is here: Download Hauler Prototype 0 (10 mb) .

New Feature: Couch Games

I know I’ve been terrible with keeping to my blog posting schedule so I hesitate to commit myself to anything else, but here I go, anyways.

Over the past few months I’ve continued learning how to use Unity to build games. I’ve moved a bit beyond some of the cruder prototypes I’ve put together and shown here previously. Starting next month I’ll begin blogging (probably just once each month) about the design process I’ve been using on the current title. The updates won’t be overly detailed, but should provide some insight into what’s going through my head as I work on the game. They will also be paired with a build that can be played (for sure a PC download, possibly a web version).

What game is this!?

Don’t get too excited. The current game isn’t that much more interesting than the other games I’ve tossed up here. But my intent with this is to take something from concept to release and have it at least be somewhat presentable. (If you don’t look at the art I make for it, anyways…)

I’ll talk more about the game in the first update in September, but the basic gist of it and the next few games I’ll work on, after it, is to create “couch games”.

Couch games

No, I’m not referring to something that happens on a second date.

By couch games, I mean, videogames that that can be played on a PC and that support keyboard+mouse play as well as controller support. (Each couch game I make will support 1-4 players.) My kids and I have been playing games like Monaco and Spelunky lately… this is the kind of stuff I want to make. Albeit, more basic, given my team size and resources.

So… simple games but I hope of some entertainment value… basically they’ll resemble classic arcade games, things you can play side-by-side, with friends.

I’m not building these to create games, per se, but to explore various design-objectives (as well as improve my workflow experience with Unity). I suspect the most valuable aspect of building them will be the writeups I create for each build. But I hope some of the games will prove to be amusing diversions in their own right.

(BTW This first game is codenamed: Hauler, so if you see that word bandied about on the blog, this is what it refers to.)

Are You Working on Anything Else, Brent?

Yes and no.

I’m very busy writing wise… I’ve started a new novel and I’m doing some edits on past work. But I do have a bigger game on the backburner as well. Part of the reason I wanted to take Hauler all the way to release, was to get a feel for how the process works with Unity and the challenges of the various platforms. Basically each “couch” game should help me move forwards on the “Bigger Game” (how’s that a for code-name, eh?)

Unfortunately I only get about 10 hours of “game dev” time per month, so progress will be slow. That said, I have been working on Hauler for a few months and I’m several builds ahead of what I want to talk about next month… I hope to stay ahead. So what you’ll be seeing in September, is what I had built last spring.

By Release, Do You Mean “Sell”?

Do I intend to sell Hauler and/or the other games I make?

As part of the investigation aspect of how to release games on PC and exploring the various channels, I’ll probably experiment with putting the games up for sale. But since I even hesitate to call these games, this will be more experimentation than any delusions that they’ll sell.

As well, with each blog post I intend to release a snapshot of the game. So if you are interested in trying them out, you can, and then if you are really ambitious you can compare the various builds and ask me why I removed features from one build to another and stuff like that.

So, no, this is not a money making venture. More an experiment than anything.

Question and Answer over on Goodreads

Today some fine folks over at Goodreads have invited me to a question and answer.

Users have been adding questions for about a week and I’m trying to finish off replying to them all today. If you’d like to see what people are asking about and my responses, check it out:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1946103-featured-author-discussion—brent-knowles—august-20?

And if you have a writing related question or two, ask away.