Platforming Without Keys

So I've been writing up the game design document for BIT - the game I penned previously for a project for class, but am now hoping to actually work on with the other students in my class to make an iPhone and PC release - and some fairly interesting issues have cropped up.

You see, BIT is a platformer. Now, this might not really sound like a problem but when you look at how the iPhone and iPod Touch work - there are no buttons. No arrow keys to bind controls to. No d-pad. Just a touch screen and an accelerometer. It has really cool tools to create games - but they don't exactly lend themselves well to 2D platformers.

So I had to come up with a solution. I went through several different ideas (using the accelerometer to control the character by tilting and flicking the console as you move, keeping a finger on the touch pad to guide the character around) but both ideas didn't lend themselves well to the kind of style of gameplay in BIT.

I got my hands on a friends iPod Touch and played around with a few games and got the answers I needed at least, and a few ideas. So I started writing out mechanics, sketching out some interfaces and came up with a boring (but effective!) answer.

When you don't have buttons to press, you make buttons to press.



With this in mind I decided to think about the way the game plays less like using buttons and more like using a mouse to press buttons. How would you make a platformer in that case? And so I penned an idea that the character is constantly moving - the moment you press a button to go forward or backwards, he immediately starts moving. Leaving you free to jump at your leisure.

Now the only way to make sure this will work is (obviously) to make a prototype. But I doubt we'll stray far from this sort of mechanic.


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Halo 3: ODST

So I finished ODST already (I love Microsoft and Australian release dates) and I've gotta say.

The more I think about it, the more ODST is my favorite Halo game.

It mashes together the Halo 1 Mechanics with the Halo 3 engine, adds a spectacular moodiness to it and then throws in these very human characters.

A favorite part for me was the sense of actually being in a war. Being alone and having only yourself to depend upon. Scavenging what you could to keep yourself alive, and then using what you had on hand to get through - rather than what you liked best and being able to keep it the whole game.

I played through on Heroic and I found that - unlike playing as the Chief - I had to think strategically. Ducking out of cover to shoot enemies actually felt dangerous - taking a few hits quickly meant death if you didn't duck back into cover or kill them first. You can't rambo through the game. There are points where rushing the enemy becomes a viable strategy when you can flank them from behind as a result - but running straight up into a pack of brutes usually means being two-shot when they melee you, or use their far more powerful weapons.

To really beat your enemy you've got to use what you have on hand. For me, that was throwing a grenade at a car that a group of enemies was around. Or running off when I was low on ammo to flank around a building and take a foe from behind while he was searching about for me.

Possibly my favorite part in the game was when I was fighting about 10 Covenant. I'd managed to kill 5 when I ran out of ammo, grenades, and was at half health. Rushing off to recover, I managed to find a health pack - but after 15 minutes of searching, I found no ammo save for 2 hand grenades.

I snuck back to the last 5 Covenant. Managed to take one out with a stealth kill, quickly looted his weapon, and started spraying plasma fire as I backed off, tossed my only two grenades, and took refuge behind cover again. I used what ammo I had left to take down the shields on another, melee finished him, and grabbed his gun before ducking back out of sight. I waited for them to lose track of me, dashed back out and got another stealth kill before finishing off the last two.

This isn't Halo 3 - cover is your best friend and you'd do well to stick to it. Comparing ODST to Halo 3, in ODST you take cover behind the remains of a tank. In Halo 3, you feel like you have the tank strapped to your chest.

Also more interesting is just how much more intimidating everything feels when you're not 7 feet tall. A group of grunts actually pose a very real threat. And don't even get me started on a swarm of buggers. Indeed, perhaps the most difficult spots in the game are when you are pitted up against Hunters - whom the Chief would often overcome easily with his sheer speed - you can't just flank around behind them or jump over their heads. You've got to find other ways to beat them. And there's no perfect way to do it.

On the story end, it's really interesting to see the Engineers make it into the games finally after such a long time being just characters in the books - and their character is portrayed perfectly. They act just like they do in the books, and become a massive part of the story too.

Ignoring my gushing, I don't say lightly that ODST is my favorite Halo game. I loved halo 1, and I loved the city areas in Halo 2 and Halo 3 and would constantly replay them. I hated the Flood areas. And I always found it difficult to put myself in the shoes of this gigantic 7 foot tall spartan.

ODST is everything I love about Halo without all the things I hated. No flood (thank GOD), all on Earth (Awesome), in the shoes of a character that you can really imagine being your own (It's easy to put yourself in the glasses of Gordon freeman when he doesn't speak. The Rookie is exactly the same). It lacks the 'epic' feeling moments of Halo 3, and rightfully so - you're not a hero. You're a man. And you're just trying to get out of this city alive.

The thing I do dislike is that the game still suffers from some of that typical Bungie level design. Landmarks in the Rookie area are hard to come by, and you often find yourself wondering if you've come through an area before - making exploration difficult. There's also a point in the game that suffers from "Library" syndrome. If you've played Halo 1, you'll know what that means.

Overall, however, I see myself playing ODST over and over again for a long time to come. If you want to play Firefight with me some time, I'm up for it.


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Space Agents in Space

Our Website is up, but consider it still a work in progress - there's a lot of stuff on it that will change in the near future.

It's been an amazing few weeks working on this project, and I've learned more about game design and what it takes in the past few weeks than I have in the years of actually playing the games. Last week was particularly hectic as I did two all nighters in an effort to get as much work pumped out for the game as humanly possible.

Next Monday is our last day to get a pre-Alpha version packaged and mailed out to judges at GO3 but even if we do not get a version for the competition, we'll be going to GO3 as a team to display what we had gotten done of our game to the masses.

I'm trying to prepare myself for the very, very harsh thoughts from the public at large that are to come.

Making a game in 10 weeks is a hard task. Setting your goals just high enough to strive for something but still understanding what is achievable is even more difficult. Probably only the last 2-3 weeks have been spent actually making levels to put in the game. Up until that point it was discussion and design.

Much of what we set out to do is simply impossible in the time span we had - multiplayer, an interactive menu screen, and MUCH, much more will not make it into the game at all. We'll have the basis of a combat system and - hopefully - working physics so that you can actually stand on something.

Fascinating for me was a lot of design problems that arose once we actually got levels in the game. I won't go into it too much but the way the camera functions and the way the levels are laid out made for some really big problems that likely won't get solved on the project.

For now, check out the news section on the website for team roles. I'm way too ready to do as much work as I can, I swear.

I hope to have a copy of the playable beta to share some time around early October.


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It's Gonna Be Awesome

Direction

The more I study, work on projects, research into the industry - the more my direction becomes clear. When I started attending these classes at TAFE I didn't really have a clear idea of my direction - I felt fairly generalized with my skillset and wasn't really quite sure if I wanted to get into a purely artistic path or something closer to technical art.

The beautiful thing about this course for me has been that I've been able to work in a role on a team, see how I fit in with other people that actually want their own specific roles and direction, and I've found myself slide fairly quickly into a design role. I usually spend as much time thinking, writing and posturing ideas or solutions to the members of my team as I do actually sitting down and doing artwork.

And it's a role I really enjoy. I play a lot of games, I love to play a wide variety of games, and I pay attention to how I play them. I think about how things work and the mechanics of simple things. It's something I've really tried to follow through with - getting involved in problem solving probably more than actual art. I know in the coming week I hope to sit down with one of our programmers and work out an issue mechanics wise so that we can move onto larger, untouched aspects of a game we are making.

My decision has been made for my direction, at least. And looking at job listings in big AAA studios, the only thing I lack is experience. The sky is the limit and all that jazz.

The big problem from here on out is "where to from here". And It's something I see myself considering very seriously after this project is over and done with and I'm not spending every waking moment thinking about it like some obsessive parent. How does one go and get himself into a Game Design position? It's a role that so many people seem to set themselves out for. I suppose the challenge is truly setting myself apart, working on (awesome) projects and really working towards it.


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Classes Started Again!

So it's been a while since I last wrote, I had a month long break from classes and so I didn't really have that much to write about. Made a return to World of Warcraft and caught up with old friends, but now I'm back in classes and have plenty of stuff to write about again.

Though, mind you, I'm holding off on the best stuff for later on when I actually have a bit more to show.

Our classes this semester have expanded out into interesting territory with us covering a lot of Adobe After Effects and no more programming stuff. The most interesting class however takes up two full days of the 4 days we actually attend classes, and with good reason. I've spent the past week and a half in overdrive because of that one class.

In any case, you'll be hearing more from me again in the coming weeks as my classes progress and I do more that is worthy of being written about. For now, some of you WoW players out there might appreciate the PvP videos I made for my guild over on Twisting Nether. Video One, Video Two Part 1 and Video Two Part 2.


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Wacky Game Ideas: Voice Command Star Trek

File this one under "ideas spawned from too much sleep".

So I rewatched Star Trek with my mother tonight - I really love it, I might add - but anyway, half way through the movie while commands were being thrown about to put power to forward engines, it occurred to me that Star Trek is one of the few titles out there that could easily employ voice commands realistically for a videogame.

Previous space sims in the Star Trek universe have felt like they fell short because they spent so much time focussing on the action and putting you in control of weapons and maneuvering - you were basically playing the roles of several crew members at once. I think a game that took you out of that multitasking and put you in the position of ordering around a bunch of crew members to do what you want would be a very cool experience, using tech not unlike that employed in Tom Clancy's: End War.

Besides the actual mechanic of voice recognition to tell crew what to do though, I can't imagine how it would actually work. It doesn't seem too hands on if it only uses voice, and I can't imagine what actual "controls" there would be besides the voice controls. What could keep you out of multitasking roles? Perhaps the game would be split into different modes of gameplay. Over the shoulder command of a ship and then over the shoulder gunplay (or would that be phaserplay? Har har) while you go on away missions in which guys in red die often.

Just a glance into my crazy imagination.


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