I’ve had my hands full with the new business venture, so recovery has been slow.

Most of the words have been restored. The rich media…not so much. But…hope springs eternal.

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!

This last Tuesday, the EA axe swung again, lopping off the Boom Blox team.

This is an amazing team, full of passionate dreamers and doers, who can take on a new platforms like no others I’ve seen. It has been my great pleasure to work with them, and I sincerely hope we will work together again soon.

All our good thoughts are with those who remain behind at EA. Good luck to you and your projects, friends!

And now…let’s see what’s next!

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!

Very cool. Boom Blox Bash Party, which I finished up work on several months ago, has made the LA Times Top Ten Video Games of 2009. If you haven’t played it, go out and find a copy. Here’s a hint:

Boom Blox Bash Party

It’s good darn fun!

But hey, you’re busy, and who has time to click on an external link these days, so without further delay:

• No. 10: Assassin’s Creed II
• No. 9: Fight Night Round 4
• No. 8: Wolfenstein
• No. 7: Wii Sports Resort
• No. 6: Batman: Arkham Asylum
• No. 5: Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
• No. 4: Boom Blox Bash Party
• No. 3: Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time
• No. 2: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
• No. 1: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Well done team!

Now, y’all go read the article, they say such nice things!

Top 10 video games of 2009

I’m in the process of upgrading my WordPress install, after which I’m starting the move to a new server. I probably won’t have time to do this right, so please excuse the hiccups as I muddle through. After this move, access time should be much faster, and I should be able to neglect posting status updates at blazing speed.

Try here for a full size version.

EA Will Ask Steven Spielberg To Make A ‘Boom Blox’ Level

Boom Blox Bash Party in Pictures

Spielberg’s Boom Blox Bash Party Rocks Wii This Spring

I wish all games could be this much fun to work on, and the team is the best I’ve ever worked with.

So, first…buy this game when it comes out. It really is, no kidding, fun for the whole family.

Second…make sure to try your hand at building your own levels. It has one of the easiest to use editors out there.

And lastly, an oldie but a goodie:

The Expected Result

I’ll post a picture once I’m sure the traffic-storm that was Democracy Day Patch has subsided.

Version 44.0

President

• Leadership: Will now scale properly to national crises. Intelligence was not being properly applied.
• A bug has been fixed that allowed the President to ignore the effects of debuffs applied by the Legislative classes.
• Drain Treasury: There appears to be a bug that allowed loot to be transferred from the treasury to anyone on the President’s friends list, or in the President’s party. We are investigating.
• Messages to and from the President will now be correctly saved to the chat log.
• Messages originating from the President were being misclassified as originating from The American People.
• A rendering error that frequently caused the President to appear wrapped in the American Flag texture has been addressed.

Vice President

• The Vice President has been correctly reclassified as a pet.
• No longer immune to damage from the Legislative and Judicial classes.
• The Vice President will no longer aggro on friendly targets. This bug was identified with Ranged Attacks and the Head Shot ability.
• Reveal Identity: this debuff will no longer be able to target Covert Operatives.
• Messages to and from the Vice President will now be correctly saved to the chat log.
• A rendering bug was affecting the Vice President’s visibility, making him virtually invisible to the rest of the server. This has been addressed.

Cabinet

• There was a bug in the last release that prevented the Cabinet from disagreeing with the President, which was the cause of a number of serious balance issues. This bug has been addressed, and we will continue to monitor the situation.

Judiciary

• Many concerns have been raised regarding balance issues in the Supreme Court. This system is maintained on a different patch schedule, and will require longer to address.
• A large number of NPCs in the Judiciary were incorrectly flagged "ideological." We are trying to identify these cases and rectify this situation.

Homeland Security

• Homeland Security Advisory System: We have identified a bug in this system that prevents the threat level from dropping below Elevated (Yellow). The code for Guarded (Blue) and Low (Green) has been commented out. We are testing the fix and hope to have it in by the next patch.
• Torture: This debuff is being removed after a record number of complaints.
• Item: Large Bottle of Water is incorrectly generating threat with TSA Agents when held in inventory. We are looking into the issue.
• Asking questions about Homeland Security was incorrectly triggering the Chain-Jingoism debuff.

Economy

• Serious on-going issues with server economy are still being addressed. We expect further roll-backs, and appreciate your help identifying and fixing bugs. We can’t make these fixes without your help.

PVP

• Reputation with various factions are being rebalanced. The gradated reputation scale was erroneously being overwritten by the binary For Us/ Against Us flag.

Quests

• The” Desert Storm” quest chain was displaying an erroneous "Mission Accomplished" message near the beginning of the chain.
• The quest chain that begins with “There’s no Cake like Yellow Cake” and terminates  with “W-M-Denied” has been identified as uncompletable, and has been removed.

Reagents

• Many recipes that currently call for Crude Oil can now be made with Wind, Solar, Geothermal and Ethanol reagents. We hope to roll out even more sweeping changes in the next patch.

Events

• The “Axis of Evil” event is drawing to a close. Look forward to the “Rebuilding Bridges” event starting in January.

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