Arcade Berg » grin

Make It A Bonus

Arcade — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:11:56 +0000

There's a short article at Gamasutra about some of Blizzard's Design Concepts that I think is definately worth a read.

Blizzard

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27640/GDC_Blizzards_Core_Game_Design_Concepts_.php (18/3/2010)

Many of the things they talk about are "common stuff" and maybe even quite obvious, but as noted:

Some may seem obvious, but often it is the obvious advice that we tend to forget about first.

- Frank Cifaldi, Gamasutra

But the main reason I wanted all of you to see this was because of the very last of them, which i think is brilliant in its simplicity. It refers to reward and punishment as I'm a big fan of exploring.

Make It A Bonus

As designers, say Pardo, there is a natural tendency to worry about punishing the player rather than rewarding them, but a clever designer can play with a player's psychology and turn it into a bonus.

Pardo related an example of World of Warcraft's rest system: when the game launched, players were punished for playing too long by having their experience gain percentage drop from 100 to 50 percent after a couple hours of play.

Beta players universally hated this idea and were screaming bloody murder," said Pardo.

The fix? Turning this into a bonus scenario instead. Players now start at 200 percent experience and drop down to 100 percent. It's the exact same mechanic, but now it's a bonus instead of a punishment.

It's nothing new that the guys over at Blizzard often makes the right design decisions but this is easily amongst my favorites!

Sucker Punch

And while I'm linking to Gamasutra articles and trying to sound clever anyway, I might as well give you this one too:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27638/GDC_Infamous_Open_World_Trickery.php (18/3/2010)

It's about how a small team managed to create the huge environment you see in Infamous (Sucker Punch). They're using a hexagon-system and making sure to limit the line of sight.

In Infamous, all of the street intersections are "Y" shaped -- this is a natural effect of the hex-based layout, but it also means players can't look straight down a long street. "If we provide really long sightlines, you get bored running down the street," Fox said.

Not only does it help with the gameplay, it's a lifesaver performance-wise as well. It's common to do it like that. We (GRIN) did it for Terminator Salvation as well.

Happy reading! Now I gotta finish the "Hitting and Getting Hit"-chapter in the Iskall GDD.

Me in German!

Arcade — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:37:42 +0000

Back in late 2009 I wrote a post in which I presented an actual level design test that I got from GRIN and that led me to getting my first job as a professional designer. I've recieved a lot of positive feedback for it, both here and via other ways.

http://arcadeberg.com/causerie/an-actual-level-design-test/ (7/2/2010)

I recently got contacted by a German level design portal asking if it was okay to translate it into German and post it. Of course it was more than okay!

http://www.realize-portal.de/ (7/2/2010)

So here we are; me in German!

I don't even know what that means. I hope it's not something mean.

http://realize-portal.de/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=480&sid=eb648d20fe157884fc65838414202c8b (7/2/2010)

I'm international!

Calling code: 49

Where does the money go?

Arcade — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:37:17 +0000

I friend asked me a question and my brain just froze, because I have no idea what the right answer is. (That never happens to me!)

- Now what GRIN has shut down, where does GRIN's money from sold Bionic Commando, Wanted and Terminator: Salvation go?

I have no idea! Now, the foot soldiers at GRIN never got to know much about the bussiness aspects of GRIN, but I assume that GRIN got some royalties from each sold copy of their games. But now when GRIN is gone, where does that money go? I suppose that the most likely answer is that the publishers just keep it for themself.

Does anyone know how things like these work?

Different kinds of portfolios

Arcade — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:13:52 +0000

When you're trying to get a job within the game industry, there are two things you need to do.

Be able to present yourself in an attractive manner.
Be ready to do a work assignment.

Today, I'll the discuss the first thing.

Presenting yourself is preferably done with a kick-ass portfolio. Depending on your profession this will manifest itself in various ways. Are you a designer, programmer, 3d artist, animator or perhaps a level designer?

Let's assume you're new and you want your very first job as a game developer, then you'll have a real hard time becoming a game designer.

It's very hard to build a portfolio on your own as a game designer. You can write as many game ideas and game design documents you want, but chances are slim that any recruiter will actually read them. The best thing you can have are actual games made and those usually require more than designers to make, right?

What are you gonna do, put a lot of .pdf's on a site? Good luck. Have fun.

Personally, I think that all the game development programmes at Universities are great for this. That's the "path" I took and it helped me greatly, as I had a couple of projects in my portfolio before my first job. Sure, none of them were a success, but it's still better than nothing.

Take note however, that my first job was not as game designer, it was as a level designer. I'll get back to that soon.

Artists can "easily" create a fat portfolio by himself, assuming he's actually good enough. Same goes for animators. Both have their pretty galleries and show reels to show off, having a very tangible way of showing their skill.

Here's an example of a show reel by an animator friend of mine, currently working at Epic Poland / People Can Fly; Markus "Metal" Hammarstedt:

http://www.Widunder.se (17/9/2009)

Demo Reel 2009 3.0 from Markus Hammarstedt on Vimeo.

Programmers are tricky, because it really depends on what kind of stuff they code. But they still often create something... Concrete. So if luck is with them, they can share their creations in one way or another. Demoing physics on YouTube or having entire applications/games on a site.

Lastly, Level Designers are kind of like artists but still... Not.

A level designer can in most cases work independently and create level after level, hosting them all on a website, take some pretty screenshots and let it speak for itself.

Here's an example of an amazing level designer I had the pleasure to work with at GRIN, who's done just that; David "CozyDave" Lundvall:

http://wizardext.se/maps.html (17/9/2009)

You can also record some videos. Like I did with my bachelor degree project DM-Theatre:

The problem is; screenshots and videos don't actually relay the actual play experience. You can't tell how fun the level is, just how pretty and a rough estimation on its flow.

If you got ze über-skills a lot of people will play your levels online and you'll build up a reputation and if you're mega lucky, the guys employing will have heard of it. But... That's not likely. And no, that sure as hell didn't happen to me.

But it's still useful to have that portfolio with levels, just to show people that you know how to handle the tools, editors and have an understanding of art in level design.

The funny thing is, I didn't have a portfolio site or any levels created available to the public when I got my job at GRIN. Oh no, what I used was luck.

In two days I'll publish my actual work test I got from GRIN and what I did to land a job as a level designer at what was at the time; one of the most awesome developers in the world.

PS. Sorry all you audio guys, producers and all other professions that I left out. Still love you!

Terminator Salvation – Game Design Analysis

Arcade — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:37:47 +0000

Getting less than great reviews, the Terminator Salvation video game doesn't seem to be a favorite amongst the reviewers out there.

Reviewers tend to write subjectively about their experience with the game, as should they. I decided to write an analysis of the game, looking at different aspects of the game and comparing them to basic game design and simple cognitive psychology. It discusses both bad and good things alike, even though it might be leaning more towards one of them.

Since it's pretty big with around 4500 words, I've decided not to copy-paste it into the blog as I doubt you'd have the patience to read it. Therefore I offer you three ways to do it:

PDF-download: http://arcadeberg.com/files/arcade_berg-terminator_salvation_gd_analysis.pdf (29/6/09)
Issuu-link: http://issuu.com/Kizo/docs/arcade_berg-terminator_salvation_gd_analysis (29/6/09)
Read it here, embedded from Issuu!

And please, leave a comment letting me know what you think. I'd greatly appreciate it.

Terminator Salvation

Arcade — Sat, 30 May 2009 21:06:09 +0000

It's been out for a little while in the US but finally, yesterday Terminator Salvation hit the stores here in Sweden/Europe as well!

It's as many of you know the game I've been working on the majority of my time at GRIN.

Finish the game and you'll see my name in the Level Design-section of the Credits. Or if you don't want to bother finishing it, just use the credits function in the options menu. Anyhow, I'm in there!

Thanks to this release, I can finally republish some of my older posts that were removed way back.

Finally, a released game on the resumé!

Terminator Salvation, PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.

Bionic Commando Demo

Arcade — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:09:52 +0000

Bionic Commando demo available tomorrow via Xbox Live.

It’s a FREE Xbox Live Gold weekend too, so be sure to play the game – all the time!

Having downloaded the multiplayer demo recruits will be put through their paces by competing in Deathmatch battles on “Vertigo”, one of the game’s 16 multiplayer maps. This intensive training will provide invaluable experience before they take on the full mission with the release of Bionic Commando on Xbox 360 & PlayStation 3 across PAL territories on May 22nd .

Why am I telling you this? Because it's made by GRIN of course.

The Cake is not a lie!

Arcade — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:43:31 +0000

Kudos to my lead at GRIN!

Today we got a delivery to the office I work at in Gothenburg from a local bakery. It was a cake sent by my lead to me and two other guys. He's currently on vacation in Thailand or something, so it was really a huge surprise and a nice one at that!

My first – Gifts!

Arcade — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 15:00:22 +0000

Yesterday I got a christmas gift from Bobby (http://www.bobby.se/, 18/12-08), the company GRIN has had help from for some storyboarding. Terrific guys, really! Friendly, funny and humble! Oh, and skilled, if that matters?