Developing Thoughts 19

The latest of my columns has just been published on the Randomville site.

"The development of a set of interface mechanics can be a major concern. If you don’t get it right, the whole perception of the playability of your game will be judged by how the interface affects the player’s enjoyment. It’s likely that most projects go through a period where the interface doesn’t feel right or needs improvement – the trick is to discover the problems before the game is released."

Site update

My main site has just been updated. I felt that the blue colour was too cold and I've replaced it with a colour scheme that's much more inviting.

John Peel, fondly remembered

I was saddened by the news that John Peel has just died, aged only 65. Back in my formative years in the 70s, he was one of the most influential DJs on the radio and many a late night was spent listening to his wonderful show.

I remember back in 1975, I went to see Pink Floyd at the Knebworth Festival and John Peel was the DJ filling in between each of the bands. There was one point in the afternoon when we suddenly heard the opening notes to one of the Bay City Rollers singles. Of course, this was absolutely horrendous to anyone with the taste to enjoy the Floyd and almost instantaneously a hundred thousand people screamed at him to turn it off. John Peel quickly removed the record and said in his dry manner, "The surprising thing, is that you all recognised it instantly." Good one, John.

We'll miss you.

Tax

One of the downsides of freelancing is the keeping of records for the year-end tax returns. Until now I hadn't really given this much thought, but I've decided that the rest of today is going to be spent putting all that in order. What a dreary way to spend a beautiful Sunday...

Handwriting

There was a competition recently where one of the prizes was a script from Wanted: A Wild Western Adventure signed by me. I know, I should have told you all about it, but my mind has been everywhere just lately. I signed it and sent it off to The Adventure Company yesterday, but just before I signed it I worried that I'd make a mess of the short message, so practiced a few times before I did the real thing.

Using computers so much means that I hardly ever write anything by hand these days, and certainly nothing for public consumption, so I find that I really have to think about doing so when I want to not make any mistakes. Sometimes, when I'm taking notes and make a mistake, my mind often thinks "Ctrl Z", such is how much I've become used to the handy nature of "undo".

I was actually very surprised to find that Neil Gaiman, who regularly posts long entries in his online journal, writes all his fiction by hand with a fountain pen. One of the things I love about typing is that it allows me to get my thoughts down so much more quickly than if I was writing them out by hand. Still, a person must write in the manner which allows them to maximise their creativity, so as long as Mr. Gaiman continues to give us such quality, the method of doing so is really irrelevant.

Love Cats

Weekends are such a good way to get my head back in order after having it buried in plot and story details all week.

Just been to the Pocktoberfest beer festival this afternoon. Not only was there great beer on offer, but some excellent music played as we drank and chatted. some of the beers of offer were called Snecklifter, Dogs Bollocks and Ram Tam. There was one called Gales HSB that had a distinctly fruity aroma and taste, which is strange for a beer, but one that actually worked very well.

The festival was organised by the Pocklington and Market Weighton Round Table and all proceeds are going to the Air Ambulance service. Not only was it a good excuse to enjoy myself, it was for a good cause, too. Apparently, it's going to be an annual event, so if any of you fancy coming along next year, keep an eye out and we might get to meet up while enjoying some great beer.

No column this week

I'm sorry, but this week's instalment of Developing Thoughts hasn't appeared because my computer problems meant I didn't have the time to do it.

More Downtime

I've had a problem with my computer again, this time caused by a service pack 2 problem. I seem to have cured it, but it's left me with little spare time this week. I may not even have time to write my column this week, let alone post anything substantial here. NOrmal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Developing Thoughts 18

The latest column has just been posted over at Randomville.

I'm no doubt going to get lots of hate mail and death threats after this one.

"There are some fabulous things being done in games and we should be proud of how far the industry has developed in a relatively short time, but at the same time, we need to be realistic about where we are in the larger scheme of things."

Wanted arrived

My free copy of Wanted: A Wild Western Adventure arrived today. The packaging is first class - very slick and glossy. I only had time to play it for fifteen minutes (because I'm very busy) but I was pleased with the voices I heard. It's always a bit strange when I finish the writing - in this case, script editing - and wait to see how they've interpreted what I've written. It's pretty much like sending your children out into the world, hoping that they're going to be okay. I shall play some more over the weekend to see if it all holds up. :)

Projects catchup

The main project that I'm involved with at the moment is at a point where I'm waiting for feedback before continuing next week. The beauty of this is that it enables me to think about lining up possible work further down the line and do some work on my own project ideas.

This morning I'm actually spending some time on the RC1 project. It's good to return to this after not doing anythign with it for a few weeks - it gives me a better perspective on how it's shaping up. For instance, there are four main characters who have known each other for some time. This seemed to work well as a story, but as soon as I started thinking about gameplay I realised that I needed a different dynamic in order for the two to work well together. What I've done is change the situation so that the player character has never met one of the four characters and so becomes a means of talking about the things you would expect friends to know already, but which, as strangers, the characters can talk about and so inform the player.

Not only does it suit the gameplay much better, it also gives me additional ways to develop the humour and create an exciting, developing dynamic throughout the course of the game. I'm really pleased with this development.

The Weight of Words 2

This freelance business...

And so, I come to the end of another busy week working on my latest freelance project for a really cool developer. Although it's incredibly hard work, I've just come to an important conclusion about working freelance:

It's absolutely brilliant!

Ahem... Sorry about that. I'm just really loving working on the fabulous projects I've been fortunate enough to secure for myself. The best part is that I get to work with a greater variety of people and swap ideas. I have a great deal of respect and admiration for all the really creative people who work in the games industry, because it's so demanding. Yet nearly everyone I've had dealings with has been pleasant, kind and helpful, as well as fun to work with.

Therefore, I'd like to thank everyone I've had the chance to work with and those I'm yet to meet. This industry is a blast!

Developing Thoughts 17

Randomville has just published the latest of my weekly columns, the second part of a look at Game Mechanics.

"So, it’s a week later and we’ve called the design team together to discuss the results of the brainstorming session."

WriteWords

I've just discovered this site called WriteWords. Not had a chance to explore it fully, yet, but will do so shortly.

Game Design vs Gameplay Design

Confused? I wouldn't blame you if you were.

Over at the Adventure Gamers forums there is a thread just started up on Games Education. Being interested in the passing on of knowledge, I thought I'd look into this a little and from what I can gather, many course that profess to cover Game Design seem to think that it involves the creation of 3D character models, visualisation and even animation (among other things). Courses like this strike as being Visual Design for Games.

Game Design as a term is probably too broad a term, yet when I think of what I've done in my career, it's hard to think of it in any other way. For instance, my work on Broken Sword - The Sleeping Dragon included working on the story, the gameplay mechanics, the interface mechanics, the development tools (with programmers), the high-level gameplay sweep and many of the section breakdowns. Does everyone who considers themselves to be a game designer have such a broad role?

I thought about whether the industry should look at defining roles more clearly so that people know what's expected of them. Should Game Design be renamed, Gameplay Design? Or is it that the second is really a subset of the first? What happens when a game designer moves to a different company and suddenly finds that his job description is nothing like it was in his last position? Do designers in big development studios have a narrower role than those in smaller ones?

With a lack of clarity in the industry, is there any wonder that colleges and universities are misinterpreting what the terms actually mean? Let's open some debate and see if there are ways of not only helping the industry, but also ways of helping courses provide the right curriculum for their students.

Thoughts?

News on Wanted

Ign.com has a press release about the release of Wanted: A Wild Western Adventure.

"Developed by Revistonic with script editing by award-nominated Writer-Designer Steve Ince"

:)

The Weight of Words

The following is a link to the full-sized image.



It's a try-out for a new idea I'm having...

Developing Thoughts 16

The latest of my weekly columns has been published on the Randomville site, here. Sorry that it's a couple of days late, but this was due to unforseen technical issues.

"This isn’t about designing cool levels; this is about developing the basic building blocks with which to design those levels."

Tell Tale Games

Tell Tale have a newly designed site which is well worth a visit. Much more stylish than their last one, they hint at secret projects they are unable to discuss. Very mysterious - I can't wait to find out what it is.