Outlook of 2010 for Botworks

One of the main reasons I started this blog was as a way for me to keep track of my ideas and projects. So, in that context, this is more of a post for me, as it is a rough plan of what I plan to do this year.

Frozen Kangaroo, the real time strategy game I am making has been put on hold. This is for a number of reasons. The most important is simply that I have learnt so much since I have started that I have emerged on to the second stage of ignorance: aware of my failures (the step before being incompetent AND unaware). As a result, I can look at Frozen Kangaroo and say it is a lot more complicated than I thought and needs full planning.

I need to find you what works for me. My Computing coursework has helped me in this respect, but there is still much I need to learn. However, Frozen Kangaroo is too big for me to experiment with

Instead, I am planning a couple of much smaller projects. The first one I am allowing only a month to complete. I will have more details out soon, but I will briefly explain what I am trying with the planning. I am using a free piece of software called Freemind which allows me to create mind maps. Now, none of this is new, but I have never really done it properly. What I am going to do is break down each part of the game in to tiny little components that may be one algorithm or object.

The aim is, if I can make sure I know how to do each component, then theoretically I can make the whole game. The problem I had with Frozen Kangaroo, the nail in the coffin if you will, was that I needed to enhance an existing feature to include extra functionality. However, the feature was woven in to the very fabric of the game and when I changed it, everything broke. My hope is, with these tiny parts, each part will equate to one function that will have a fixed output and once they are done, they are done.

The second stage will be drawing up a schedule. I said that I would limit myself to one month. That means, that at the end of one month, I will publish everything I have made if it works, and if it doesn't, I move on with only a post mortem to remember it by (where I will try to decide what I did wrong)

I hope to start this one month project in February but I want to draw up a plan before I start and I have exams in January, so it may be more like half way through February. If all this goes to plan, I will begin planning a 6 month project. Hopefully, this will lay quite a lot of ground work for Frozen Kangaroo as it will have similar planning challenges as FK.

I also want to learn how to use Unity. I don't plan to make anything particularly noteworthy, my rough aim is to make a game set on an island where you must collect 8 items to help your escape. Hopefully, there should be just enough there for me to learn the basics of Unity.

The big thing for me this year is going to university. Don't ask me where I am going, I don't actually know (:S). Also, as it will be the last year at school I plan to go on holiday with my friends during the summer. None the less, I would still like to get the proper Bot website up and running, whilst maintaining Veteran Gamer, this blog, my school work, playing games and all of the above.

I hope everyone had a merry Christmas and a happy new year. Hopefully this time next year I will have 2 games to my name, an understanding of planning (and Unity 3D!) a place at a university and ready to restart Frozen Kangaroo. Bon Voyage!

A very small Chirstmas present from Botworks

Well seeming as I haven't finished any of the projects I am working on yet (more on what they are in the new year) so I can't offer discounts or bonus content. However, I can offer a little something for XNA developers. One of the things that I found most frustrating in XNA was drawing a line, so I created a little function to do just that. It isn't especially clever, but it gets the job done

void drawLine(Texture2D line,int lineWidth,Vector2 startPosition,Vector2 endPosition,SpriteBatch spriteBatch)
{
float length = Vector2.Distance(startPosition, endPosition);
float theta = (float)Math.Atan((double)((endPosition.X - startPosition.X) / (endPosition.Y - startPosition.Y)));
float alpha = (float)(2*Math.PI) - theta;
spriteBatch.Begin();
spriteBatch.Draw(line, new Rectangle((int)startPosition.X, (int)startPosition.Y, lineWidth, (int)length), null, Color.White, alpha, new Vector2(lineWidth/2,0), SpriteEffects.None, 0);
spriteBatch.End();
}

• line - this a pre-loaded texture2D which is your basic line pixel. It needs to be 1 pixel high. It can be of any width (for example if you want a glowing line) but a standard line is 1 pixel wide
• lineWidth - unsurprisingly this is the width of the texture loaded in the line property
• startPosition, endPosition - these vectors are the start and end co-ordinates of the line
• spriteBatch - this is just the instance of the spriteBatch which, unless you have specifically changed, is just called spriteBatch

And here is a quick demonstration. I am using a 21x1 image file which is just a red pixel in the middle with fading transparencies going out to create something of a laser effect.

Merry Christmas and a happy and productive new year to you all.

Thankyou, BBC

In my last post, I explained why I felt that video games should be covered by mainstream media as a proper medium. I sent a link to the BBC as I believe they could do a program, I even suggested including it in the Radio 4 programme, Front row.

So you can imagine how pleased I was when last nights episode of Front row included an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto. You can listen to it here, it is at the end.

My only complaint is that the presenter called other companies Game manufactures (as opposed to developers or even producers). Other than that, it was really quite good. I am sure it wasn't down to my letter, but hopefully it will lead to further coverage. If they are looking for additional people to interview, they should try Peter Moleyenux (a keen advocate of pushing the boundaries of game design rather than graphics).

Mr. Miyamoto was fantastic as well, quick to defend the accusation that games and films will merge. All in all, I am very happy and hope it continues.

Thanks BBC, you guys are awesome.

The perception of games and why it needs to change

It is my belief that the general perception of video games is that they are exclusively aimed at children. In this post, I hope to challenge this view, explain why it is damaging, examine the causes and outline what you can do to change this view.

The Perception is Wrong

Before going any further, let us be clear what I am saying. I believe that video games as a medium have as much potential for depth as any other media (film, books, music etc). I am not saying that all games are mature pieces of artwork, but, this is the same for any medium. Film has great thought-provoking movies, like Shawshank Redemption, but it also has Final Destination 4. Books have Lord of the Flies, but they have Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six. Do any of these less mature titles mean that the rest of the medium is childish? Of course not.

Games can provide a unique way of telling stories that involve the player; not only can they immerse the player, they can let the player effect the story and the whole experience becomes more real. It even goes beyond this, games don't have to be a linear traditional story, but an abstract experience. It is beyond the scope of this post to discuss this fully, but games have a near infinite capacity for making players feel a huge variety of emotions. I think this means they qualify as a mature form of art.

Why it matters

I care because I have a true passion for playing games. When playing a really good game, I experience a truly fulfilling enjoyment and it saddens me that so many people dismiss it on the basis it is different. However, there is a real danger when parents take a games-are-not-for-me attitude.

Typically, parents do not get involved in the process of choosing and playing games, hence they are not best able to make judgments of what may or may not be suitable for their children. I am not going to deny that games can be damaging to a child's welfare, like every other medium. However, like movie ratings, game ratings are guidelines. Some children are going to be able to play 15s when they are 12 and they aren't going to grow up to become murderers. It has to be done on a child by child basis.

Films have a PG rating which means that younger audiences may require an adult to watch it with them. I think the same applies in games, sometimes having an adult take an interest in the game and discussing the more mature themes with the person may help them to understand the game in a sensible way.

What causes this perception?

The games industry itself is, in part, responsible for this perception. Not only has the industry promoted the clichéd image of teenagers mindlessly shooting people, but until recently it has not addressed the "controller" issue which, to many adults, can be highly intimidating.

However, there is another element contributing to this perception - the main stream media. The only stories covered by the popular press are when either financially significant games are released or scare stories saying that games are turning children in to dysfunctional slobs or mass murderers.(see this video for the other side of the story).

I feel the problem is that there are no programs on television or radio dedicated to indepth discussion of games. This reinforces the idea that games are for children. There are programs on the BBC for films, music, books and plays. However, there is nothing for games, even though programs such as Front Row could easily cover it under it's remit of:

"Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music"

If the BBC or any other mass consumption media want proof that interesting intellectual discussion can be had about video games, Three Moves Ahead, a real time strategy podcast, is a good start. (Try episode 8).

What can be done

It is all very well me criticizing, but what do I think should be done?

I genuinely believe the BBC has a responsibility to host a program that facilitates informed discussion of games. (This means more than a quick review of the latest releases). Games now have a larger market share than DVD purchases; it isn't a niche market anymore. I will be sending this post to the BBC and, if you agree with what I am saying, I ask that you do the same . Likewise, repost, link, retweet and spread the word.

However, there is something we all need to do; talk to people who hold this negative view of games. Don't call them a n00b, try to engage them in a meaningful conversation relating video games back to a medium they enjoy, such as films or books.

If you feel you are getting somewhere, there are 3 games which I feel are both accessible for anyone to be able to play and also demonstrate the potential of video games to engage, entertain and stimulate the player.

• Portal: This game is available for both the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 and has modest PC specifications. This game has a beautiful and very funny story and the best puzzle design I have ever seen. It shows games to be an intellectually stimulating pass time. It has a very gentle learning curve and does not require first person shooter skills to get started.

• Fable 2: This game is very easy to pick up: the combat system only requires one button and death penalty is minimal. However, it demonstrates the power of story telling in games. Encourage them to let go of themselves and become their character. Tell the player not to feel self-conscious and make the decisions as they actually would. If they do this, they will be treated with the kind of emotional depth that few books have achieved

• Bioshock: This game demonstrates a world to explore - one of the things that games excel at. This game also has very little punishment for dying (although I would recommend letting them have a little experience with first person shooters such as Portal first, you can get both games on the PC, Xbox 360 or the PS3). It also has an absolutely fantastic twist that a book could not pull of due to the nature of games.
  

If the skeptic player is still in any doubt that video games are a serious topic suitable for serious discussion, then encourage them to read about a game designed by Brenda Brathwaite called Train or listen to the aforementioned Three Moves Ahead podcast.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading. To summarize:

1. Games are not just for children
2. Games are a serious medium and have as much potential for emotional depth as any other medium
   
3. Main stream media should be encouraged to devise new programs to cover games
   
4. Parents - get involved in games. Only you can know what is right for your children, and you might even enjoy it!
   

Spread the word and, if you disagree with anything I say, please leave a comment, I would love to hear other opinions.

Music as a source of inspiration, Part 1: Lost Coastlines

Many things inspire specific game ideas for me. In fact, hardly a day goes by without some crazy, ill-thought-through idea planting its seed in my head. It normally starts with a desire to create a feeling or an emotion. For example, today I was watching a film called Speed Racer (surprisingly good actually) and I wanted to recreate the thrill of racing at absurd speeds requiring stupid reaction times where you had to jump, spin and smash your way to victory. I had even started mapping out the controls and how the single player would work by the time the film ended.

In the following two posts, I will be outlining a couple of game ideas that have been inspired by pieces of music. As with everything else, what normally happens for me is that it conjures up an image in my head, that then translates in to a game play concept.

The first song is an obscure song that was released on the Single of the Week offer run by iTunes. The song is called Lost Coastlines by Okkervil River (Spotify Link). My idea started at the end of the game, I, however, will start at the beginning.

It is a RPG of sorts set on the seas back when wind was the main means of getting around. At the start of the game, you have a simple choice, are you a right honourable sailor, or a pirate? You then arrive in a port and you are tasked with choosing a crew for your ship (which you inherited from your father who died at sea). In the port there would be about 100 people. (This is where the fact that I don't intend to build this in the coming weeks comes in to play): Each one of these would have a in depth and varied history and personality.

The basic game play would consist of a number of potentially unrelated quests separated by expanses of time. This comes back to an idea I discussed on GD.net, with a more "real" world and potential for more varied quests. I'll do a post why I think this kind episodic game play could work at some other point, however, it is not really relevant to this post.

If you're listening to the song, you are probably wondering, other than the vague sea theme, how the song inspired me to make this. In truth, most of what I just said existed before I heard the song, the sea theme is what made the following element glue with the rest of it.

Through out the game, there would be vague hints, mad ravings and general NPC chatter about a "Lost Coastline". At the start of the game, I imagine most players will completely ignore it. However, I hope, as the game develops, and the references are repeated, people will pick up on it. There would be stories of sailors who went mad looking for the coastline, there would be hysterics who claim to have seen it etc. The only thing in common is that everyone who knows anything about it, says it is the most beautiful place ever and that no sailor has been known to return.

Once you complete the game, as with many RPGs, you are free to continue looking around. It would be an open world in which you spend most of your travelling time auto sailing between ports and using maps to find known destinations. However, it will be perfectly possible to freely sail anywhere. Somewhere in the vast sea of the game, there will be the Lost Coastline (of course) and players can try to find it.

At first you are probably repelled by the idea as being cheap. However, if it were easy to find, the whole point would be destroyed. I also regard it as in addition to the main game; for most people, the game will end without more than a cursory search. As it will be so hard to find, I envisage a giant internet cult spawning to try to find this beautiful lost coastline (I love designing without reality messing things up!).

Then one day someone will find it, and it will be a beautiful experience for them. They would be the first person to set foot on the lost coastline. The first person to see all the wonder. True discovery is something that few in the 21st century have experienced. I would employ an artist specially to create it (who would be killed after development is finished, obviously) While I have mapped out what will happen, I don't really feel comfortable typing it out. Suffice to say it would poetic, or at least try to be.

Afterwards the person would run and tell the internet all about it and everyone would rush there, but the magic would be lost. But for that one person, I (hopefully) would have created a unique experience that they will treasure for the rest of their life.

Inevitably, it would be found by some stupid spoilt kid who played the game for five minutes, constantly tried to skip the damn thing because he was bored, until he found out he would be internet famous, but that's life!

----------------
Now playing: Okkervil River - Lost Coastlines
via FoxyTunes

Games as a form of art

This is a very hot topic at the moment and one that a lot of people have posted opinion on. I have my own opinions, but they basically boil down to that a good games makes you feel something (be it excitement, intrigue or success) but an art game makes you feel something that is not necessarily regarded as a positive feeling. For example, you could make the case that Fable is an art game because you feel responsibility, sadness at loss etc.

I have more to say about it, but I really posted this to link to an interesting post of the Zen of Design about this topic.

I largely agree with what it says. I think it is practically true that just because we have plenty of games that definitely aren't art (Gears of War 2) the same is true for all artistic mediums. In books, we have the Olaf Stapledon but then we also have Andy McNab. Does that mean that books can't be a form of art. No. There are hundereds of pictures that are just well painted nice landscapes, which I wouldn't call art. Or rather I would, which is part of the problem, as I see them as the painting eqivalent of Gears of War, nice to look at but won't make you think.

That is also the other thing, everyone has a different deffinition of art, which futher complicates the matter and risks reducing the arguement to one of pointless semantics.

[Sorry for the lack of posts recently, been on a French Exchange and going back to France in two days!]

Twitter - Not Just Jumping on the Bandwagon

Technologies come and go on the Internet and I like to think I only sign up for technologies which I can actually think of a use for, rather than just what everyone else is using.

For example, with Twitter, I wanted to use it to post updates on the development on Frozen Kangaroo. I often found that I had made progress in its development and wanted to keep a record of this, but it was not nearly enough for a blog post. In that sense, Twitter was ideal.

However, today I found another use for it. I can't work out if Twitter is actually any good at this, or whether this is basically what forums have been doing for ages. Basically, there is now a #gamedesign tag where frequent discussions about different game design topics take place. Its been going for a few weeks now, but I only really got involved today (discussing professinal gaming as a public sport, after I watched some of the Star Craft final live). It was then I realised how fantastic it was.

I think the reason it is good is because it forces people to express short points, which means it is easy to keep up with it, instead of having to read pages of text, as is often the case at Gamedev.net. Also, Tweetdeck does live updating, meaning you don't have to keep using F5. As a result, any games designers or wannabe games designers, if you are looking for an excuse to join Twitter, here it is.

(Oh, and make sure to follow me @thk123)