I’m coming up for air after an eventful GDC week. Did I mention: Lightning Prototypes, a group of crazy-talented folks, is now open for business?

We’re only a few days old, so there’s not much to tell you, but be assured, exciting things are in motion!

Once again, I am humbled to be working in the company of a truly outstanding group of visionaries, dreamers and doers.

Answer: The internet is broken.

My friends Dan Thron, Ben Hansford and their talented cadre are creating a whole series of these damn funny, love-filled tributes to the glory that is TRON.

That I have not told you about these sooner is a shame that will haunt me well into next week. But don’t take my word for it. That’s why they invented hyperlinks.

Episode 01: Discs of Doom

Episode 02: TV Night

Episode 03: Bikesploitation!

Episode 05: The Interrogation

Where is episode 04 you ask?

Exactly…

Links have been fixed. Thanks Mark!

Gareth Hinds kicks off the conversation. Gareth is a creator of graphic novels, whose excellent adaptations of Beowulf, King Lear and The Merchant of Venice are not to be missed. He also has a dark, secret past as an extraordinary game artist.

Dave Konieczny is co-founder of Bithoard Games, whose recent release Blastination is one of my favorite iPhone games.

Gareth: What advice do you give to high school kids who think they want to become game designers? Is there anything like a recommended course of study as they head into college?

I recently got asked about this by two different kids.

Sean: You’re asking me? I just made stuff up as I went along, and somehow got people to pay me. But that was more than a decade ago…not sure that works anymore. };^)

Having a background in programming and art is certainly helpful from the standpoint of effectively communicating your ideas. That has certainly been a huge help to me over the years.
There will be math. Algebra, trig, statistics. You will be happy with a strong foundation in maths. The more you know the better off you’ll be.

But the biggest thing, and here is where I think art is important, they have to make themselves keen observers. They also need to read widely, travel, go for nature walks, pretty much everything but sit in a classroom/cubicle all day. Get out of the echo chamber of popular culture once and awhile.

Tell them not to get attached to ideas. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Focus on turning ideas into a product, a demo, something real.

Dave: Learn to work with people and know when to compromise. As a designer you are just a part of a larger team and you need your co-workers to get the game built and make it work. If you don’t learn good people skills nobody is going to want to work with you, let alone build a game based on your idea. Don’t be afraid to champion ideas you think are good, but learn to know when to compromise. As Sean said, listen to feedback and take it seriously. Your co-workers are also very creative and they play a lot of games too.

Sean: The reason they need a diverse and wide-ranging knowledge of the world is that they are going to have to come up with hundreds of thousands of interesting ideas over the course of their career, most of which will softly and silently vanish away.

When someone criticizes an idea, listen to them. You don’t have to agree, but you need to understand their feedback. All of your ideas are not beautiful diamonds. Many of them are turds. Let people help you sort out which is which. Then, when you have one that is undeniably great, you’ll be in a better position to fight for it. If you treat every idea as if they are equally good, people will, rightly, not trust your judgment.

If you’re inclined, learn Flash/Actionscript, C++, or another language. There’s nothing that settles design arguments like a functional prototype.

Remember that prototypes are great for answering specific questions. A bad question to answer with a prototype is, will this game be fun? To answer that, the prototype has to be the game. A better question is, is Mechanic X fun?

Dave: I agree with Sean about prototyping mechanics. A prototype removes silly arguments about what is fun or not. My team and I followed this philosophy on our iPhone dev and it was wonderful. If we had an idea we got it up and running quickly and that answer all our questions rather quickly and definitively. Also, we weren’t afraid to throw it all away. Often you have to iterate to find the fun.

Sean: Always try to work with people who are better and smarter than you are. They are your teachers.

Make friends with your marketing department. They are solving a different set of problems than you, take the time to learn what their goals and methods are. Making a great game does you no good if no one knows about it.

Dave: Play other games in as many genres as possible. You need to see what your competition is doing, but also what else is working and what’s not. There’s lots of inspiration out there.

Keep it simple. I’ve found the best ideas for mechanics are generally simple concepts. You can build upon those basic ideas down the road if you want to add more complexity, but keep the core as simple as you can. I think some of the best games out there revolve around simple mechanics. This is especially true with the move towards more casual/social games.

Maths are good. So is reading, writing and speaking proper English. If you can’t communicate, well… game over.

Sean: Yes. Learn proper English. If you think speling iz 4 luzers, your resume will never reach my hands. Do I sound like a grumpy old man? So be it. This goes back to ideas. It doesn’t matter how brilliant your ideas are, if you can’t effectively communicate them to other people, those ideas will die with you. To give them life in other people’s minds, you have to be a communicator, a salesman, an evangelist. And since much of this happens with the written word, your writing skills must be strong.

There are a number of schools that teach game design. I don’t have much experience with those programs or their grads, so I can’t address that.

Develop a set of marketable secondary skills. The game industry can be brutal. Having a viable Plan B gives you options.

Dave: You really have to be passionate. Game development has become such an incredibly competitive business and with all the layoffs these days there is a very large talent pool for the remaining spots. If you’re not passionate about making games you’ll have a much harder time landing a job and enjoying an extended career.

Gareth: I want to summarize a few of the “getting started” points and make sure I understand them and how they apply to someone just starting to get their feet wet. Correct me where I’m misstating your position:

- A degree is not necessary, but college-level writing and math are more or less a prerequisite. Art or graphic design is a very nice plus. So is programming.

- Get skills/degree that will serve you well in other ways, since you may strike out in game design.

- Play lots of games and think about what makes them fun (or not fun).

- Try prototyping game ideas. Use Flash. How about other methods — paper? Mods? Focus on something you can build, not just big ideas. Prototype specific, simple mechanics.

Dave: Re: the prototyping I would think any method that you can use to demonstrate a specific idea or mechanic would work. The faster you can do it the better.

Sean: Good point about prototyping. Paper, legos, wooden blocks, whatever works.

And here’s a point that many people miss, and it ties back into why you should play lots of games and demos.

The very best demo is the one you don’t have to build.

If you can find a snippet of another game, or an online flash game, or a board game that already demonstrates your mechanic or something close, there’s your prototype.

A background in paper games can help, for certain kinds of game, paper war games too, since they are basically painfully slow video games, minus the computer. Good for systems designers who love making and tuning huge excel spreadsheets.

Dave: Another point on the mods. One really good way to get into a position in design, specifically level design, is to do a mod or use a free level editor and create a level. There’s really no substitute for showing off real game design skills with your own creation.

Sean: I would add: get involved in the community. Find the groups that meet in your area. Build a network of like-minded folks. It’s hard to be a one man or one woman show, so find some engineers and artists and musicians who are interested in games, work together to build a mod, or a demo. That kind of calling card will open more doors than a diploma and good intentions.

Gareth (continuing summary): – Travel, observe, be a pop culture sponge. Write a lot.

- Learn to work with people — network, seek feedback, accept & use criticism, learn from others.

- Be passionate about games, or find something else to pursue passionately.

Dave: Don’t be afraid to do a different job if need be. I did QA and production along the way because those were the available opportunities. Being flexible allowed me to stay in game development and taught me a great deal about the many aspects of game creation.

The industry is brutal. Be prepared for disappointment and definitely have a back-up plan.

Gareth: Thanks!

Wow. My friends are really kicking ass this week. Rich and Tina launched their new show, and now Gareth grabs a little national media attention.

You go!

I’ve talked about my friend Gareth Hinds here once before, when he signed a deal to publish with Candlewick Press. While King Lear is still working it’s way to the shelves, Candlewick has released a magnificent hardcover edition of an earlier work, a graphic novel adaptation of the old English epic poem, Beowulf.

I was thrilled to hear from Gareth that Beowulf was getting a review in today’s New York Times Sunday Book Review. The review compares three adaptations of the work, and they lead with Gareth’s new edition.

While I am enough of a geek to cringe when they call a graphic novel a comic-book, I can’t grouse too much, as they give the book a very

nice review. Here’s snippet:

It’s a fantastic book, much (all?) of which was hand painted on wood, which gives a subtle and beautiful sense of weight and age. You really should go buy it right now.

Theatre is alive in well in Los Angeles, in no small part due to my good friends Rich Alger and Tina Kronis. They are the creative force behind Theatre Movement Bazaar. They’ve just announced their new show, Monster of Happiness. This is their tenth (by my count) original show, and going strong.

They consistently choose interesting and challenging themes to explore. This time they take on…well, I’ll let them explain it:

Monster of Happiness is a psycho-physical, science fiction love story based on the myth of Adam and Eve and examining a cornerstone of the American Dream: the pursuit of happiness.

In this work the company pursues the 20th century aesthetic innovations of early American modernist literature, Meyerhold’s Biomechanics, and post revolution ‘Soviet Style’ cinema. Integral to this process is a feedback loop, an invitation for the public (via the TMB web site) to provide personal views on happiness.

That last bit is important. They are asking the web public (that’s you!) to fill out a brief questionnaire about happiness. Some good, thought-provoking questions, and it can be answered anonymously, so the government web-spiders won’t find out your views on questions such as:

• If you had to choose between happiness and peace, which would you choose?
• What do you imagine to be the happiest era in world history?
• What’s better than being happy?

The show premieres at the 24th St. Theatre.

Show Times

June 15, 16, 22, 23, 29, 30, July 6, 7, 13, 14 @ 8:30pm

Late night shows June 30 & July 7 @ 10:30pm

You can buy tickets for the show online.

I have the good fortune to be friends with a number of wildly talent folks. One of them is fellow by the name of Gareth Hinds , an illustrator who has done a number of graphic novel adaptations of great works of literature. You may have seen his Beowulf , or Bearskin . You probably haven’t seen his soon to be published King Lear.

Gareth has recently entered an agreement with Candlewick Press. They will soon be releasing a new edition of his Beowulf and other new projects

Gareth is casting one of those upcoming projects, and asked me to sit for him as a possible model for a small part. The image on left leads to the full scan of the quick test. I hope I make the cut!

Now don’t just sit there, go check out his work!