You must have on the job experience paul. A lot of people consider me to be a bad game designer (I'm in the amateur industry) because I have to have support from my team or I woun't be any good at all.In my opinion I think designers have to have support from their team or they woun't be as good as they usually are because of how important communication skills are in designing. But I have seen some great designers that don't have a whole lot of communication skills though (mine arn't really that great but everyone that's seen me in action said I'm pretty good)

[edited by - XvdragonvX on March 18, 2003 6:05:43 PM]

Speaking as a wannabe who has studied fairly voraciously what he can of the industry and its history, good and bad, past and present, I would agree that there has been this slow process of the programmer=designer position slowly being given up as more and more specialization(or, at the least, a more powerful set of tools) is required to make the most of the technology available.

Learning something of every skill seems very applicable to the design process, if only because it helps with communicating to the rest of the team(but also so that realistic expectations, particularly technical ones, can be set).

Right now, I push myself to develop a wide range of skills for my own project(no team) and can''t really profess to a mastery of any one of them. This is frustrating, because it makes me wonder to myself if my plans are "real" or if I''m kidding myself and should just focus on making great sprites or sketches or programs or music, rather than an average job on all four.

Also, getting into a team for a mod or other stepping-stone type of game project as a designer is the most frustrating task in the world in my experience, because the times I tried, there was a lack of clearly defined roles for the majority of the members, or a lack of all the talent needed - usually nobody to code, and I took a look at jumping into using MSVC for a Half-Life or Serious Sam mod and backed away quickly, because I don''t know very much of C/C++ and all the stuff used to make the 3d part of the game fairly scared me - I don''t know how to cast rays for shooting attacks, just to start. So I would start a design document, maybe putz about with mapping(it was worthwhile, at least to make me have a go at those things).

The result, anyway, with these projects was that they degenerated into a bunch of people who had nothing to offer besides such words of wisdom as "itd b coo l if u had a m4 /w teh 100 round drrum mag," or such skills as joining and then disappearing forever. The people that were useful were too few in number and we lost our morale because of this, eventually causing everyone to abandon it one by one after some drama and infighting. Maybe I was just on some bad teams...

Making the world furry one post at a time

I hear you there RTF, I''ve had those same problems too. I joined a team a while back with like two other people and the team leader (he was on on-line friend of mine) woun''t let me do anything at all, he thought everything he said about the game was the absolute best and didn''t listen to me at all. I eventually quit and as soon as I did a week later their project died (very promising game actually). So not too long ago I started another project with my friend and my cousin and the people that we described the game to loved it (all of them), but the problem is, is that we never have the time, right now I''m the only one that does stuff for the game (my friend is lazy and my cousin has a family). I''m sticking with one though, I have to get some experience before I go to college and join the professional industry.

Original post by Paul Cunningham

quote:
What this to me shows is how important it is for the designer to know the positives and negatives of the computer medium or whatever medium they work on for that matter.

I think it is worth suggesting that technology and it''s attendant growing capacities and refined maturities of function are reducing at a rapid rate negative limitations. An example of this would be: about four years ago, a world class animator told me if I knew how hard it was just to model a tree. Over a year ago, a CD of premodeled Max trees became available, and a few months ago, an editor for the models was developed so you could make any kind of tree you wanted quicly and easily. Another example would be that now you can get a desktop P4 chip and a 128 Mb Radeon Graphics card in an alienware laptop.

quote:
You can''t call yourself a game designer if you can''t make a simple card game from a pack of 52.

I didn''t realize there was a litmus test for game design. What if you are not a card player at all and still can design a FPS? If anything, the litmus test is the phrase uttered joyously from the mouth of a playtester, "That was fun!"

quote:
A game designer these days must choose first how big they want to go. You can be a game designer on many scales of work its up to you to make the desicion of what will satisfy you.

Scale is usually the first choice in design brief specs. Sometimes a designer who really knows themself will understand the level they work best on, and go in at the size of project they know they excel and thrive in. Just because they chose not to start small and work their way up in no way suggests that the large scale design will be a bad design. Walking before you crawl belongs in the preceeding century, imho. There are thousands of robots to help you run fast metaphorically speaking, Stephen Hawking is a good example. I can walk into a design studio almos anywhere and say, "I want this and that and this" and not know how to make it myself, but somebody will gladly take the money to do it for me, and when I sit down and look at the finished product and am satisfied, is that not then how value is created? Value and satisfaction go hand in hand in perception land of the warm upright homonid.

quote:What is this design process he is talking about i would like to know.

It''s a formalized process I learned in architectural design. It begins with determining what you have to work with (the size of the parcel of land minus it''s legal setback percentages gives you the permissible workable land area; this is synonymous to the size of the gameworld that suits the setting that backdrops your game story) and then determining the environmental factors (going to the site and seeing how it is oriented to the sun, seasons, grade, elevation, topography, soiltype, drainage pattern, utility locations, and other associative basic functional and aesthetic preexisting factors). It''s got a lot to it, but it''s very powerful as a tool. It''s also very demanding of the output of the tool user.

Once you have a clear and detailed to scale and format drawing of your basic ''this is what we have to work with'' elements, then you begin to think about the occupant of the dwelling structure that does not exist in reality yet.

You tie together the best elements of the existing survey (such as: this is the best view from here and there and there, this is the best light from this direction at this time of day, this area indicates the largest square footage of level ground, this area is the strongest subsoil composition thus will make the best structure footing support) with the realistic life elements of the occupant (what time of day they get up, and would this view and this light from that direction suggest the best place for the breakfast room, how many kids do they have and what area would be best for the backyard playground) -- you get the idea - it''s about the ''use'' of the ''user/occupant''.

This is why the call it "land use" at the aesthetic level, and at the technical level it''s about how many kilowatts or flushing capacities a family of four generates per year average.
Both criteria are as important for the overall design, it''s just that the former is artistically compelling to create, and the latter is blandly looking up statistics in pre-existing building and land use standards archives.

Or, on the other side of the equation, this area gets very little light during the day, so all the windows on that side of a structure would be small (so as not to lose the thermal heat mass you want a comfortable interior environment to contain).

It''s very much an aesthetic synthesis of all available elements, including the occupant (synonymous with ''user'').

quote:
Everyone has their limitations on what they can do today, these limitations WILL NOT make you a bad game designer. Its whether or not you are willing to accept your limits and those of your team and enjoy the fun that can be had making a game. Skills and improvement come from the effort!

I agree with this, but there is a part of design that has to do with personal limits that is what the learning challenge to grow into as a designer has that is of value.

A good designer who is competent in basic skills who gets hooked onto a massive project will be no less worse a designer than a great designer who has very little emotional investment in the project, as it may only represent a paycheck. Most money people buy people as well as ideas; and they protect the investment in the person by having expert liases available should they be needed for troubleshooting. Often, these liases are attorneys and engineers. Remarkably corrolary, don''t you think?

The great designer who is not onboard on other levels would be a bad investment, imo. I started in architecture on basic little things like foundation plans and plot plans, but three years later I was managing dozens of hotels under reconstruction simultaneously, and had entirely forgotten, nor did I need to remember, because a civil engineer had been retained, about how a foundation was designed. Today, though I can still not remember how to exactly draw a footing type, yet you can drive through Old Town San Diego, see my work and know the buildings are safe to sleep in.

quote: by adventuredesigner
The designer is responsible for the whole aesthetic, detailing and every design choice (unless delegated to a sub designer like a level designer or a graphic artist) in the entire game.

quote:
Negative, on this basis i must doubt your experience and say you''ve just read a lot.

I have. But you cannot in every case generalize in specific circumstances. The particular game I choose to design has as it''s constituent gameworld components previously existing terrain that has been surveyed for decades to a very high degree of 3-D accuracy, and is retained in survey archive repositories in digital formats easily importable into a 3-D graphics program.

If I were designing a game that had no specific or relative identicism to the real world (say for example a space based game with different planets), then my land use experience would be only somewhat of use (but even then physical criteria for planetary and asteroid formation would be consistent in the physical materials and formation senses; this comes from the old school notion that nature is a pretty incredible designer as well as just the plain facts of physics).

But my gameworld is exactly like the real world in a strict topographical and survey sense; there is very little that I have to create or make up for my levels that doesn''t already exist in reality, with the exceptions of gameplay elements and interstitials/cutscenes and a few other things.

They are already in existance, and I just made the jobs of my modelers and animators a whole lot easier, quicker, and less costly to the overall budget in that budget category. I''d say that gives me a commercial advantage over competitors, though I subscribe to the notion of paying more attention to the customers than the competition generally.

quote:
There is no way you could say this if you were working in a commercial game development house as a game designer.

Since I have plenty of preexisting things to design my world and levels with (in fact, you could almost say that for other than the interactive and story elements, the levels actually are in pre-existance digitally) why would I want to blunt the skills of my level designers by taking away their focus from designing interesting puzzles, traps, tricks, foos, challenges, NPC''s, bosses and subbosses, etc.) for simple topography arrangement?


That would be counterproductive. And, if you take a look at commercial game houses out there today, as an indie developer, why would I want to be involved with those organizations anyway, their market position notwithstanding?

I, and many other people in this business think they are the bane of the business, so why not do it myself If I can find a practical and affordable way that meets a competitive standard?

Most people who take on entreprenurial risk know that if you wait to have 100 % solid information, it''s already too late to begin because of time to market, besides other factors. They also know that if they have 80% solid data, they have the wit, flexibility and contingency funds to deal with the surprises in the other 20% as they come up.

I suggest reading a book called "Doing Business Boldly: the art of intelligent risk." It will surprise you about what you think you may know about risk in business and markets with new and untried brands or even established ones in trouble. The story about coca cola''s formula change is worth the cost alone, but the cleverness of genentech is also rich material.

Maybe I was not clear when I said every little detail, but the truth is, if you were to examine the specifics of my overall design production approach, you would see that I can design far more of the gameworld than an ordinary game designer would simply because of the choices I made from the get go, when I did my theme and aethetics comparisons and evaluations (I liken this to the old database designer''s axiom that you think about your data before ever creating a single table).

I did not mean to create a misimpression, but I think a level designer''s time and efforts are best spent thinking about how to challenge, motivate and cathartize a player through the avatar''s and interactive environment''s available actions; not plopping in a wall here and a puddle there (though I am in no way saying either that level design in a traditional sense does not have value). Just as music moves movies, environment and objective moves kinaesthetics.

quote:
Why put the extra work load on your own shoulders?

Because now that I have illustrated how (relavity) easy it is for me to handle those parts of the design personally, or through others if the project management workload analysis indicates production timetables require the capacity of more than one person of a particular skillset, I can save money in the budget, a.

B, there is a complicated (highly structured and complex, not confusing-complicated) mystery story central to the gamestory that has it''s own contstruct demands, and I need the creative control over the level design to choose where, how and what exposition is revealed so the overarching theme of the solving of the mystery construct demands (which is fundatmental to winning the game) is done to the standard I set.

I''m not saying I can''t get somebody else as a level designer to be on the same page, and indeed they may improve things, and if I can get that budget funding, I would be smart to have that objective input, but for now, the money is not there, so a project manager says, "hmm, how can I set up my production methodology in such away that I can get the most amount of work completed with the least amount of resources spent while still meeting aesthetic production level standards?" This is called ''designing for design''.

quote:
If you''re going to concern yourself with the "whole aesthetic''s and detailing" your artist are going to think you''re a nazi.

Or, the artists are educated enough in design (as a field of approaches, styles and techniques) to understand that if there is *not* a consistent, homgenous overarching theme that is the core structure of the design, and the aesthetic and creative choices that were selected as it''s primary supporting elements are not judiciously and consistently supported and revisited, then how good a design do you really have?

And, what are the chances of critical and financial success of such a design? I am not saying this would be true for all design, I am not the uberfather of design, but it is true for my particular design, which is uniquely unlike anything out there today.

The reason I chose this theme and approach is because not only did I choose wisely that I wanted it to be different from an artistic standpoint, but also that it played to a few of my best creative design strengths (outdoor adventure and mystery, for examples), and I felt as a businessperson it had the best chances of success.

It is a perfect example of alternative marketing. This is also known as the ''uncola'' strategy. Seven-up once commanded 13% of the entire cola market simply by presenting themselves as an alternative. The sugar and lemon-lime did the rest. I think the lack of caffiene was also a factor, but it was not a negative brand attribute in the minds of consumers so much way back then when the brand was introduced to it''s market category. This is the great marketing trap -- to not think category, but to think brand.

I think you have to be able to not only create a good design, but make the case this good design is a seller also.

quote:
Allowing the team to contribute in these area''s is what they work for.

Perhaps, but I never had any engineer, painter, hod carrier, general contrator or political figure ever ask me why I chose a particular design function or form, they just knew intrinsically the second they looked at it whehter or not it blew up their skirt in an aesthetics appreciation sense; if that ever even came to their consciosness.

I will not say this is the case in game design, that would be a stupid comparison to advance (but maybe I already stupidly advanced it, lol; you tell me, I respect and value your opinion and experience), but most people want to know exactly what you want them to do on this job spec, not the big picture of why.

This in no way means I would cut myself off from the opportunity of taking advantage of the particular expertice of an artist, modeler, animator or programmer if they felt their idea was valid and would improve the quality of the project. But then, that person would have to have the motivation to advance it also. We all know about levels of motivation in humans generally, much less in a professional working design environment.

I always (always, always, always) tell the people who work with me on a project the why before the what. It''s not only a way to get the best out of them technically, and gives them a chance to emotionally enroll in the project so they care more about what they do and just don''t show up and do what they know how to do for the paycheck, it''s a sign of respect for their intelligence, creativity, and a good litmus test on how to tell the best and the brightest out of a pool of seemingly similarly qualified candidates.


Addy

Sorry about the double post, I got an IE error the first time, so did it again. The second post is the valid response.

Addy

quote:Original post by alnite
That''s a very interesting design process, but how do you apply this technique to the game design?

By blending it with the principles I learned screenwriting, or writing for that matter.

In any story is a setting(s), that setting is appropriate and relevant to the exposition criteria, those criteria can be as simple as, what has to be communicated to advance the story, how it is communicated, who is doing is, and where.

It can be more detailed if necessary, the stage of plot progression you are in is the general guide. Two factors influence this. One, of the threads you are weaving along (plots and subplots and foreshadows), which are coming together where in resolution of the open issue that was driving the plot to begin with (as it has relevance to the basic conflict that is the heart of the main plot), and, two, what is the actual location chosen in sequence all have a lot to do with how you choose the scale of the representation of the reality in the shot. Multiple shots are considered scenes, and multiple scenes are considered sequences. A feature script has an average of 22 to 27 sequences.

I am using the shot term here specifically to indicate this is what you would see onscreen. This would be similar to what you would see on the computer screen in a game with the exception that what you see onscreen may be only what is currently in view from the camera pov of the what you are pointing the avater at, when the entire level may also be loaded to render the second your eye (the camera) is directed that way through input devices.

A more clear and graphical description of this I can draw from my latest script, then I will draw an example from my game to show differences, because through line plotwriting and interactive storytelling are two different things.

In the script, the protagonist starts out in France, goes to Portugal, then to Africa, and then back to France. Different logical places that I could choose in that main route to expose different data are: While he is still on french soil and has not learned yet of why he must leave, or, he has learned he has to leave and he is in the process, or, he has already left and somebody says, "Whew, we just got out of france in time, I''m glad we were warned by so and so!"

Logical settings for any of these exposition choices relative to plot would be: the guy''s home before the news comes, the guys car as he is leaving but still in france, and the destination as he gets out of the car having left france. Anywhere in between would have been a relevant place to expose the data, you are the creator must choose which is the best setting to expose it. As you can see, the range of choices can create the level of tension from ''we found out in plenty of time, so no biggie'' to, ''man, we just got out of there with our skins.'' If the data to be expositioned was ''hey, my gf wants to meet me in spain'' then we have low tension and it can be exposited matter of fact (though something exciting better happen with gf later if we want to keep the audience hooked). If the data to be exposited is, "The whole assasination squad will be here in five minutes, and I could lose my life for telling you this!", then, a more active expositional setting would be warranted, such as hauling along the road out of france in your porche doing 100KPH.

The choice will have specific physical criteria that determine the scale of the shot. If it''s at the guy''s house, and he gets the news early cause that''s your creative choice, the viewer will still have to be visually oriented to the setting (you just can''t jump to the guy on his couch getting the news and cutting to him closing the door to his car at the destination outside of france, unless you want a huge disjoint in the continuity of perception of the viewer; but they don''t like that and will leave the theater post haste and call you an amateur) so you would have an establishing shot almost always an extremely long shot or a long shot (say the guy''s house from the road and the buddy with the bad news arriving, walking up to the door, knocking and getting let in), and then bring the aspect ratio of the image down in stages as you choose (the usual suspects are establishing shot, long shot, medium shot, close up, and so forth) until the major information is imparted in the tightest shot available to make it''s impact the greatest.

In a game of the same scenario, the player could materialize on the level behind a hedge that he moves out from, and the only thing to see as a major object in the field of view is the house in front of them (though they could choose to look at the ground or the sky or all around the house before going in, the scale will eventually be served as positions are taken to interact with the level, such as following the man to the door, going in unseen behind him and listening from a position of espy unseen as he hears he has to leave france) The point is, visual continuity must be served in both mediums, unless you want the yard to be only front door to be five feet away from the road, and the player''s own sense of ordinate perception says to him, "hey, this is not realistic and I can''t believe this", but you don''t want to do that for obvious reasons.

Other factors to consider is the type of characters involved (not every game character or NPC is young, handsome and brilliant and dangerous; life is variety), environment (is it a blinding snowstorm, tropical thunderstorm, hot day, cool evening; there is a thought in storytelling about the kind of news and the time of day, but that is when you have a choice, if the bad guys are coming, and the characters must react quickly, then that will influence setting as well. Action shooting and sequencing have some particulars to them, but you wouldn''t want to see a brutal swordfight from a thousand feet, it would be useless and boring. Nor would you want to see it from six inches away because you''d see very little action and the audio would be deafening. Nor would you want to see it from a constant few feet away unless that is the way you choose to control the avatar and just hack at the opponent mercilessly.

Since the player has control over the avatar, and that is a great influence and contro over POV, the you would want scale and proportion to help the player make movement choices. It''s the difference between a store front that pulls you in off the mall main drag because of the way the space is arranged, compared to a storefront that is so busy you look at it from across the mall.

Scale, proportion, mass and negative space, color choice and lighting choice can literally lead people around an area subcosciously. I suggest creating standard area cubes in MAX, drop classic three camera lighting into them (spot, flood and fill), and toy with the size and shapes of basic objects (not necessarily all primitives; some should be complex shapes) and add or subtract warm or cold colors.

You''ll learn real fast what looks good and what is visually tweaky. Remember that even in a true to scale 3-D environment (or in a 2-D one for that matter) orange and blue can force perception of 3 dimensionality).

Even in an interactive story, where the player chooses where to go and what to see, they are not in control of the entire gameworld, the designer is. The illusion of control is what they think they have, imo. I try to mix up close in scenes (say the player has to work a computer on a desk) with transitional and exterior or large interior areas, so the visual flow has got it going on. If I leave a cramped office with the driver on floppy I need for an unnetworked computer on the other side of the planet, I am a happier player if I a, leave the cramped office for a transitional image (hallway, tunnel, or however I got in) logically graduate my environments until I get to my big image of my jet on the runway, and then cut to a transitional cutscene of the jet hauling tail around the planet, and then perhaps my landing approach to the country where the destination computer is.

Now, you can throw in all kinds of complications, but I am not sure about burdening the player with complications or challenge once they have the foo that has to be transported until I have a clear change of scene or level. But I am not an experienced game designer, I am however, very expert in creating positive and negative spaces that don''t distort people''s senses endangering suspension of disbelief, and pacing of action and reflection elements so the perception we are trying to preserve the suspension of disbelief for is not exhausted.

So if I am expositing a major plot point such as the point of no return (the hero could not give up even if he wanted to; for destiny has him in it''s sights), or, something subtle like the first time the girl you just rescured looks at you without fear and with curiosity; the pitch, tone, direction of the exposition (does it help or hinder, I mean) all have indirect yet powerful inflence on where you set the shot up at in terms of design elements.

As the film industry brings more and more of it''s power to bear on our industry, more and more of these cinematographic techniques will be in games, and we have all read more than our share of articles on how to use film technique in your games from the camera position point of view (remember the camera is the eye), that I don''t think it will disserve the project not to allow for them when appropriate.

Now, I don''t mean overture the flowery violins just because the woman your avater just freed from the bad guy is feeling greatful, that would be corny, but it could be handled a variety of ways to express the same sentiment, that could be seen is a very action filled moment, or as a denoument if you chose to close the level out knowing you just had your player hooked for four hours, and they gotta mentally have a break sometime.

As for my approach, I use scale, time of day, texture of the level or scene objects (whether mountain ranges, houses, two chairs and a table, a single finger reading a ancient scroll on that table) and pace of exposition all are determined by what you want your player to know and when.

In my game, there are levels deep underground in catacombs of caves, and once in awhile I bring the person through a very tiny hole or a long tiny hole, into a relatively spacious interiro cavern. The tiny hole they just crawled through may be mud brown, so the large cavern has luminous stalagmites or stalagtites, so you can turn off your lamp and save battery power, or, I may have you come out of a cave to the surface only to climb a large peak that has the same cave trail continued at the top of the hill. It''s about visual balance in scale, form, and light and shadow. These are the principles that bring about believability, and that helps keep the player''s attention, and perhaps serves anticipation as well, even if the alien that is around the corner in that perfectly groomed grove of tress is horribly featured to the point that you are laughing at it''s design like you would at a horror movie.

Though there is a design disjoint there unless your game is about alien invasion of the earth. So theme is form and function follows it. Environments are a subset of the functions of the theme. In my example, the house, the car, the roads driven on, the country the road drives through, the landtype at the destination. These all will flow from the theme. After all, the theme is not crystallized until you have a character, time, place, setting and conflict.

Now, right here I want to deal with the notion that games and stories are different. They are and they aren''t. Each has a beginning middle and end, and each has a conflict and an objective. That is about where the similarity ends, because in the game, you can go anywhere you want, but sooner or later, you are going to have to deal with the theme (that has a beginning, middle and end) if you want to finish or win the game.

Some of the brightest writers on the planet will say that it is like a string of pearls for a story, and a plate of pearls for a game. In both cases, you are going toward a goal, and it''s the how you get there that is substantially different, as well as what you can do while you are going along.

But the going towards a goal, whether in film or a game, is what your player is thinking about, unless of course, they are on brain low-res mode like me, and are just running around in the gameworld with no particular need to go anywhere special. I call it discovery for the sheer joy of no expectations, and I think it is an untapped move to make in our industry, but hey, let me risk my money on proving that; ya''ll can imitate me later if it works, and buy me a beer to cry in if it doesn''t.

Getting to that goal is going to influence the design, the type of goal is going to influence the size of the game, and, well, I just dropped out of high res brain mode, so shoot back some q''s if I missed anything, like the point of your question.

HTH,
Addy