Plot is Gameplay's Bitch

I Have Been Playing Some Games; Maybe You Should Too

2012-02-14T14:10:00.001Z

A few week ago I lugged my PC up to Birmingham so the lovely chaps at Sega Hardlight could set it up to run the game we're working on. Apart from scaring the hell out of me (tower unit in a suitcase, wrapped in binliners, in the rain) and reminding me how long it's been since I went to a LAN party, it was eye opening for the producer's reaction on seeing my desktop. Apparently I play an awful lot of games.

A lot of that is down to my messy desktop (there's a reason I have a work laptop) and tendency to buy games cheap just to take a look. Many of the games installed on my PC I never got more than half an hour into. This said, I may not play as much as I did when I was 13, and the further I delve into the games industry the less time I have to play (ie the less time I'm prepared to spend staring at a computer screen); but still, I work hard to play the big stuff that everyone references, and the little stuff that inspires me to do new things. Here's some of the stuff I've played recently, in case you might also like to do so, and because you can tell a lot about a person from the games they play.

The Darkness II - I was asked how the campaign for Digital Extreme's shooter came across the other day, and I think I said something like, "This is what happens if you give a writer a bit of time and budget." To say that The Darkness II's writing or story are strong is to miss the point a little; what's really going on here is that if you're making a narrative driven shooter you should do it like this. Aside from the gameplay (which is fun and polished, reminiscent in style even of Arkham) what stands out here is how much the story is weaved into the gameplay. It reminds me of Uncharted in that respect: it's not that this is an especially smart piece of work, it's just that it has the confidence and freedom to make you an inmate in a make-believe insane asylum, or to give you a two minute scene where you dance with your dead lover. These are interesting things.

Polish: 2 out of 2

Tilt: 2 out of 2

1916: The Unknown War - This one grabbed my attention. It's an indie demo (it actually reminds me a little of Penumbra's) in which you navigate an abandoned trench in WW1, while being hunted by robot dinosaurs and looking for the ladder out. Presented in B&W and with a claustrophobic head bob and level design, it's taught and terrifying. I wish it wasn't written in German, but there you go. Word is a commercial game is on the way, consider that one tipped.

Polish: 1 out of 2

Tilt: 1 out of 2

Gotham City Imposters - This was on Steam for not very much so I figured why not. It's the latest in a string of mediocre-to-good, budget online shooters (see Monday Night Combat, Bloody Good Time or Hei$t), and it's towards the mediocre end. It promises fun and innovation, but delivers something rather cynical (a tendency, I suppose, work for hire stalwarts Monolith could sometimes be labelled with [though definitely not always]). Aside from the varied selection of navigational tools (cape, hookshot, roller skates) that genuinely mix things up, the rest is just shooting people with guns. The progress system is ripped straight out of Assassin's Creed (and probably half a dozen others), yet lacks that game's depth. The matchmaking system doesn't trust you to choose your own server, but cannot itself be trusted to find you a game anytime this year. Try one of the others.

Polish: 1 out of 2

Tilt: 1 out of 2

Batman: Arkham Asylum - Just about one of the best games I've ever played. The writing is nothing outstanding, the format is not wildly different from its predecessor, but good lord is this a sound piece of entertainment. It's the combat system that really draws me in: it absolutely nails the three tenets of a great brawler: the controls are simple, yet there's massive tactical depth, and it makes you look super cool. I don't remember the last brawler I played to the end (or, really, at all). Not every game has to do something new, provided it does it with this level of confidence and fun.

Polish: 2 out of 2

Tilt: 1 out of 2

Memoir '44 Online - Here's one that I didn't expect to be my bag: a multiplayer turn-based WW2 game. I do have a love for turn-based strategy, but I strongly get the impression this game isn't meant for me. It is, I assume, a board game conversion, and a cheap one at that; one aimed at real lovers of the tabletop version. It's slow too. However, the tactics are sound (though sometimes I feel a bit too much rests on the dice roll), it's free to play for a good few hours, and it engaged me enough to shell out a few quid for extra battle tokens. Definitely worth a free look.

Polish: 1 out of 2

Tilt: 1 out of 2

Top Indie Stealth Games

2012-02-03T00:01:00.000Z

Stealth has been an under-served genre for some time now - ever since the heady heights of the early noughties that established the franchises that to this day are left waving the flag: Thief, Hitman, Splinter Cell. For each of those there's a Metal Gear that's lost its way in another firefight, or a Project IGI that's silently slipped away.

This is why we love indies.

Games That You Can Play Now
Deity

What Deity establishes that most of the games here also display is almost puzzle-like gameplay. Here you play a demon thing who can possess light sources in order to move undetected, and who must strike his foes from behind, stringing together leaps from enemy to enemy before shooting back into the shadows. The omniscient perspective and simplified mechanics work together to make each room a combination lock that only needs the right timing, the right angle and the right plan to pull off. It's slick and it's fun, but it doesn't stop me yearning for something meatier.

Trilby: The Art of Theft
Yahtzee
An oldy but a goodie. Ben 'Yahtzee' Crosshaw's back catalogue is a gold mine, but this is the jewel. It's a 2D side on noir following master thief Trilby as he's stitched up, double crossed and generally harangued. It is, really, everything you'd hope that game would be. Varying levels of shadow, AI guards to avoid or blacjack (well, electric umbrella-ify), lock picking, stealing shit, exploring people's bathrooms... All that's missing is more. There must be around an hour of play here, but it's to the credit of the framework that that feels like short change.

Merry Gear Solid 2
Arthur Lee
Another 2D, this time top down in the vein of the Metal Gears of the Gameboy generation. It loves its subject material, and the lengthy dialogues strike a familiar balance between drama, tedium and variable voice acting. It's the most fleshed out of the offerings here, and features some entertaining lines. Still, Thief this is not.

Some honourable mentions include Stealth Bastard : Tactical Espionage Arsehole (Trilby-esque, sharp visuals and heavy on the puzzle aspect; made by a couple of the chaps at London's Curve) and Splinter Source, a 2D reimagining of Fisher et al.

Great as they are, none of these games quite captures the magic of Thief or Hitman for me. I'm drawn to the stealth genre for what I assume are some of its necessary (AAA) features: plausible locations and AI, large, detailed environments and a phobia of combat that leaves room for a more thoughtful narrative. These aren't features that an indie game cannot incorporate. It's all there for the picking, and that's exactly what these games aim for.

Games You can't Play Yet

Monaco
Andy Schatz
Obvious, I know, so I won't take too long over it. Monaco is looking like a fast game, and as such I don't know ho

w well I'll get on with it. Something else I love about stealth is the thoughtful pace that rewards strategy over twitch; this being said, I'm still onboard with this co-op heist' em up.

Gunpoint
Tom Francis
Gunpoint, on the other hand, is looking very much like my kettle of fish. I'd be shocked if its creator wasn't comfortable throwing a nod Trilby's way, but there's plenty at work here that goes beyond that formula. The USP is a hacking system in which every building's wiring can be monkeyed with behind the scenes to create dastardly machines of death/ghosting. Wires the elevator to the light and wire the light switch to the door: when the elevator arrives the light goes out; the guard goes to switch it back on and locks himself in. It looks smart, engaging and pretty; perhaps most importantly we ought hope Francis' time as a journo has taught him how to deliver a full experience.

Blank Slates & Scripted Decision Making

2012-01-20T21:49:00.000Z

Happy new year. Blogging begins again here. Things are afoot.

In light of my recent thoughts on developing a new approach to dialogue systems (or, more accurately, thanks to a recommendation from the designer I'm working with on a nursing simulation side project) I was approached recently to produce a short interactive dialogue demo for a middleware firm based on some of those ideas.

Their core system, though, is a traditional dialogue tree, and it got me to thinking - if we're limited to the usual tools and can't factor in any procedural elements then what practical guidelines can we follow to avoid the usual problems around motivation, depth of simulation and reward? Here are some thoughts:

- Keep character and player motivation consistent. This is the single biggest one. If the player is factoring in knowledge his character doesn't have (eg xp rewards or that all paths are valid) then the decision presented (eg talk your way in or scale the wall) isn't legitimate. Naturally this requires careful balancing with subsystems like xp and relationships.

- If asking the player to choose between expressing his personality and pursuing personal gain make it clear what the outcomes are. We've all played countless dialogue-tree-driven games, each with its own subtle differences. Does pissing off my companions affect their skill in combat? Can I talk my way into losing a quest? Whether in the form of a guide at the start or signposting within, there needs to be a careful balance between exposing the systems that float the game (thereby forming a motivation gap between player and character) and preventing the player from feeling like he's been cheated when the game behaves differently than expected.

- Signpost opportunities for manipulation. Encourage the player to read the other character and select intelligent responses separate to other decision making.

- Keep the conversation moving forward and on-topic. Don't waste text on unnecessary dead ends, encourage every decision to be a meaningful one.

- Don't use a morality system. It's guaranteed to conflict with many players' own ideas.

- Use stats sparingly. Don't rely on skill checks to replace the challenge of choosing a particular approach, but do use them to reflect social standing and character knowledge.

- If all else fails, don't use subsystems. Subsystems like xp, relationship or personality sliders can be invaluable tools in simulating conversation, but they also threaten to separate player from character, rendering decisions unsatisfying. As long as this line only affects the next line a lot of the issues (and complexities) dissolve.

CD Projekt & Piracy

2011-12-19T23:02:00.001Z

This one's probably a bit more business-y than usual, first posted as it was over at GAMESbrief.

CD Projekt's been in the news of late over its judicious mailshotting of thousands of members of the German public with demands for settlements to the tune of €911.80 for alleged copyright infringement of The Witcher 2. You can get the details just about anywhere else: basically having removed DRM from the game post-launch as a move to placate honest customers (and much inline with the outfit's indie facade), CD Projekt have gotten onboard with a law firm, tracked torrent IPs, and demanded retribution.

Naturally enough there's been a backlash. There are a bunch of tacks here, but the basic thing is this: torrent trolling is bad, innocent people get done. It's true enough. Certainly an IP is not a one hundred percent guarentee you've landed yourself a pirate; certainly there will be innocent people who unthinkingly pay up.

At the same time, though, I want to argue in support of CD Projekt; or at least against those reasons. It seems to me that every game company is put in a position where they have to consider their approach to piracy and how they can profit despite or even because of it. CD Projekt is doing its best in that regard. The people there identified that DRM wasn't working: the games were cracked on release, everyone was complaining, and it was probably costing them more money than it was saving. So they jacked it in.

The company's new approach means legitimate customers can enjoy their game without the hoops. It also allows the company to focus attention on the people they actually want (and are legally entitled) to prosecute. Clearly there will be mistakes (unsecured LANs, false IPs etc); but there always are, and there are always processes in place to handle them. CD Projekt is working according to the law and to the demands of its customers. I think it's marginally better than the previous system.

Now, if that all sounds a bit too square, let me add a caveat. I don't think this is the right way about it. Personally, I don't take issue with the handful of innocent IPs that get lettered, and I don't try to pretend that just because piracy isn't stealing that it isn't illegal. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if a lot of the people complaining along those lines didn't either. What I take issue with is the attempt to secure the rights to our internet activity by the government. I take issue with approaches that try to control or fight the freedom the net grants people, and with piracy moves that try to plug the dam after the town's flooded. And yes, I take issue with someone telling me I can't stream an episode of South Park without getting an angry letter. A lot of people get a lot of crap for free now. Ask the Humble Indie Bundle if that's a problem for their bottom line.

My issue isn't with CD Projekt using the law to their best interest. My issue is with the law that allows it.

Christmas Looms, Work Pervades, Sega Game is Awesome

2011-12-09T13:58:00.000Z

Things have been slow around here (the blog, not the studio) over the last couple of months, and that's something I hope to correct in the new year. The reason for it is that Sept - Jan has been just about the busiest period of my career. There are good I've-had-lots-of-jobs-come-in reasons for that, but I've also been teaching the story design module at Southbank uni again, as well as taking the first step towards my PhD in the form of a Philosophy MA at King's College. I actually have to be out of bed by 8am four days a week.

Of most interest, though, is probably the secret project that's taking up most of my time. I'm currently narrative designer for a major new Sega IP for Playstation Vita being developed up at Sega's new 'boutique' studio outside of Birmingham. Boutique, for once, is actually being applied quite fairly - this is a bunch of around 15 highly talented chaps and chapesses producing what Sega sorely needs: new, ambitious, home-grown intellectual property. The studio's creative team is headed by Simon Woodroffe of Simon the Sorceror and Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth fame, and we're working on what is probably only the second game I've worked on which I felt might really do something great with its writing. (The first was the ill-fated Hydravision zombie game.)

The game's being designed from the ground up with narrative as its focus, and right now myself and another designer are knee deep in fleshing out the gameplay scenarios and producing a vertical slice. We're hoping to be able to announce details Q1 next year. Story development is actually in large part being informed by the aesthetics and philosophy of mind that I'm researching at King's, and I'll probably bore you to tears with some details on the latter some time soon.

In the meantime don't give up, stay chirpy, and we'll talk again very soon.

Stories in Ulikely Places: SWAT 4

2011-11-17T20:47:00.000Z

Why is SWAT 4 the singleplayer game I've replayed more than any other (ie three times)? Why does it still give me the warm sense that something somewhere is right in the world (or at least was back in 2005)? Why this despite the fact my men are unable to equip anything more lethal than a paintball gun?

At the core of SWAT 4 is as rigorously designed a gameloop as you'll ever come across. Enter a plausibly detailed, open layout environment (anywhere from a petrol station to a halfway house to someone's house) with your four AI squaddies. Find a door, check what's on the other side with the look-under-the-door / magic wand gizmo, choose an appropriate tactic and storm in. Kill/arrest baddies, secure civvies and weapons, report status, rinse repeat.

The game gets a few key things really right.

Sense of Place
I enter the dining room in the halfway house. It's a large, open hall designed to feed people en masse; I have good visibility compared to the segregated cubicles of the office building I've come from, but the size of the room means a single grenade won't cut it. I order Blue team to breach from the other entry point to cover more ground.

I love games that make me feel like I'm in a real place that affects the way I play, rather than just a series of room and corridors with different body paint to run through. Think Hitman, think Thief, think Project IGI. SWAT 4 gets half of this right - while an office block doesn't make gas grenades any less effective, we are at least encouraged to take the context onboard and appreciate the bubble narrative of each level. From mission briefings and 911 calls to believable level geometry and visual detail, Irrational did their utmost to bring you into the gameworld in a way far more effective (for me) than a Half-Life 2 or Deux Ex 3. These are all locations we're familiar with and - to a degree - predict; they feel like part of a larger world rather than a themed rollercoaster, and for SWAT that's all important.

Sense of Role
The team bursts into the dining room, the pointman reporting one armed suspect and one civilian. The suspect stares at us in shock, his weapon resting uneasily by his side. I scream at him to drop the weapon, knowing I'm the only one with an itchy enough trigger finger to pop him before he poses a threat. He drops the gun, goes to kneel down, then draws a sidearm. I shoot him in the face, which spooks the hostage, and I'm forced to have my team subdue her. Situation under control I have them both arrested and report the outcome to TOC.

SWAT 4 is, I can only assume, not very realistic in any sense but the aesthetic. This being said, it remains more realistic-feeling than just about any military shooter bar some of the older OpFlashes and Rainbow Sixes. The challenge in SWAT (at difficulties beyond normal) is not to kill all the baddies - that's easy - it's to follow procedure without letting procedure get in the way of killing the baddies. It's not quite the way it's presented, but effectively you start out with 100 points, and they're detracted for every red tape slip up.

Kill a guy when you could have arrested him: -2 points
Fail to secure a weapon or report a kill/arrest/casualty: -2 points
Shoot a guy who didn't point his gun at you: -5 points
Execute an arrested criminal: -10 points
Execute one of your teammates (even by accident): death by impromptu firing squad

It sounds petty, and it can be, particularly when the game's age (and that period's lesser focus on accessibility) sees your final objective being to rescour an empty level looking for the one handgun you forgot to collect. For the most part, though, it's a stern reminder that you're not a lawless one man army. You're a guy (a faceless, characterless guy, but a guy nonetheless) with a boss, and a job, and the expectations that come with. It feels like I'm part of a system rather than the one guy allowed to break it. That's a good thing, even if it means I have to arm my chaps with paintball guns to stop them killing dudes.

Sense of Tactical Play

I stack my men up on the next door and order a breach, bang & clear. Red One opens the door and Red Two slings a flashbang. I call up the Blue One camera and watch from first person as he makes entry and scans the room, Blue Two passing his peripheral as he heads in deeper.

SWAT 4's gameloop is, ultimately, about assessing your situation, selecting tactics, breaching a room and then making a series of quick-fire decisions. This is all supported by a remarkably intuitive order system that allows quick and (when the AI isn't getting all 2005 on your arse) effective coordination of your team that's further strengthened by the animation. It's indescribably satisfying to watch the fluid machine of your squad in motion.

Truth is, tactics are more limited than they appear. The differences between the flash, gas and pellet grenades is rarely vital (are the threats wearing gas masks? is there clear line of sight?), pincer moves are often more dangerous than single attacks, and additional flavours like pre-mission loadouts and entry points similarly cursory. The combination, though, is palpable. Just like the original, top down Rainbow Six, there's the sense of a well-ordered plan that could go wrong at any moment, and an excruciating tension. The latter is, if anything, only added to by the knowledge that hearing your guys yelling to "Get down!" means there's a 50:50 chance their overly steady trigger fingers will be slower than the suspects'; unless, that is, you can get there in time. In fact, unless grenades are wisely used in incapacitating your foes your four-strong team is easily matched by a single aggressive crim.

All Told
I stack my team up on the door and loop around to the connecting room; anyone in this second room could easily avoid a grenade blast and flank my chaps. I signal them to go, hear the bang, and make entry myself. I blast open the door and come face to face with a perp. In my panic I shoot him in the face, as I am prone to do. Oh spacial awareness, you've bitten me again: there's one fewer room between me and my guys than I figured. As the perp falls I consider how strangely well equipped he is. By the time he lands I realise it's Red One. I eyeball the rest of my team and hammer the 'F' key to report a man down, and then hammer it some more in the hope its contextual function can also handle "Guys, it was a mistake, I'm sorry!" Someone, that uppity bastard Blue Two, I think, yells, "We've got a traitor!" and everyone shoots me. As the screen fades I hear Blue Two report to TOC that the "Situation is under control."

SWAT 4 is a game that tells engaging stories without the schoolboy reliance on a grand overarching narrative. Who says games should be about a ten hour story and not ten one hour ones? It's a game that intelligently combines scripted narrative (in the mission briefings and level layouts) with procedural content (in the random enemy positions and emergent scenarios), and presents it all through gameplay that reflects the both.

SWAT 4 is my favourite Irrational game. I can think of few higher complements than that.

Battlefield 3: Worth Writing Home About?

2011-11-09T14:08:00.000Z

Was it always this hard? Were there always so many hiding places? Did it always take so long to go prone and take aim? I don't know the objective answers to these questions, but subjectively I'd suggest it's 'no', 'no' and 'Chuckpow! Solider down!'.

The BF series has long been dear to my heart in a way few online shooters ever have been - say hello Action Quake 2, Planetside, Enemy Territory and L4D - so I was intrigued by the third full entry, albeit less so than most of my narrative design students (half of whom didn't make last week's lecture, busy as they were consuming EA's marketing hype and review fixing).

Hit & miss respect for the consumer aside, what's always sold me on the formula is the same thing that made Tribes and the original 1942 so spectacular - the sheer volume of variables. I go on a lot about procedural narrative and Battlefield is a key, if one note point of reference. The tales of heroism and emergent play styles the game promotes will always be of far greater value than the scale of the 'splodes or the faux-realistic setting (and the less said about the me-too singleplayer the better).

So does BF3 deliver? It's honestly hard for me to say. Something's changed in a big way, either in me or in DICE: I cannot play Battlefield 3.

First off, all the movement feels wonky. My rig is a solid yet unspectacular Intel i5, GeForce GTX275, 4GB RAM (or is that 8GB?), and I'm sure that at the least the screen judder when I both move and look around is specific to my machine. This aside, though, I feel half the time like I'm playing a bad RPG.

IF [player is using prone ability] THEN [+50 Accuracy]
IF [player activates prone ability] AND [player is standing] THEN [+10 attack delay]

In essence, I remember a time when spotting someone first or implementing a smart strategy meant you had a decent chance of a kill; nowadays it seems to revolve more around who's got the bigger gun.

Which rather brings up the next usual gripe, and one I can't possibly ignore. It's sad that so many devs take it to be impossible to market and maintain interest in a shooter that doesn't have persistent upgrades, and while I grant it would not take forever to level up one particular class in BF3, the advantages gained are nothing less than significant game winners. Bottom line I find it genuinely disturbing that the two pillars of competitive FPS (you can guess which the other is) are comfortable not only allowing but encouraging unfair competition. We wouldn't take the IRB seriously if next world cup they banned France from kicking the ball until enough tickets had been sold to French supporters, and we shouldn't condone it any more here.

There are other things that bother me about BF3, but it seems reasonable to suggest most of them come down to my lack of integration with the game systems (or, in alternative parlance, how shit I am). I remember being able to jump into a jeep, play chicken with a tank, bail out just before the two go up in flames, then go prone and pick off the remaining defenders you've caught off guard. Maybe these things are still possible for the elite, but I can't help but feel the jeep wouldn't explode and that I'd get picked off before I even had a chance to bail. In short Battlefield Free4Play seems altogether more true to the series' heritage.

I find myself, while playing, genuinely wanting to say "Why is there so much stuff on my screen?" "How is it I can't actually see anyone that's shooting at me?" "What's with all this realistic foliage and destructible scenery?" BF2 was just so much simpler. You could actually distinguish between an enemy and a rock at distance. With that in mind, it seems the truth is that some of this is a genuine gripe, and much of it is an admission that, perhaps, I'm not as young as I used to be. For me, taking a 1:1 kill death ratio isn't really a satisfying experience. Likewise hitting a bottleneck where 20 players from each team trade covering fire for ten minutes may be a valid experience for many, but it's just not fun for me; it's just not Battlefield.

Battlefield 3 is an explosive war game with a huge marketing budget and a browser-based server interface. It is not, at heart, a Battlefield game. It is, however, modern warfare in every sense of the word. That makes me somewhat sad.

Polish: 1 out of 2
Tilt: 0 out of 2

Interview: Splash Damage's Ed Stern on Multiplayer Narrative, Baeckeoffe, and Living a Real GameDev Story

2011-10-17T12:51:00.000+01:00

For the last 8 years Ed Stern has belonged to Splash Damage, the London-based developer that started out producing maps for 2001's Return to Castle Wolfenstein and wound up epitomising the genre it helped to create with 2007's Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. The closed in level design of this year's Brink has rattled some cages, but the free-running gameplay and world design have been singled out across the board. Ed would have it that his job title covers everything ever, so it's safe to say narrative design is right up there.

Hi Ed. What the hell do you do?
I’m very well, thanks. And yourself?

Oh what do I do? Ah. Well. You are by no means the only person to wonder that. I write game settings and backstory and concept documents for environment artists, character artists and level designers. I work with Creative Director Richard Ham and Lead Game Designer Neil Alphonso and Art Director Olivier Leonardi and many other people-persons on the narrative design and lean, pull, push and puff heavily upon the greasy tiller that is narrative direction. Occasionally I get to, you know, write dialogue and work with actors. Those are good days. Days spent in Excel trying to compare objective name-change localisation typos between three languages I don’t speak, THOSE ARE EVEN MORE BETTER GOOD DAYS. So I’m basically an embedded full-time narrative designer/director/writer monkey.

Since this is a reply-by-email thing I'll assume what you just said had something to do with writing.
Actually I just wrote in a recipe for Baeckeoffe. But now, stricken by a long-dormant voice I’m choosing to call a conscience, I have gone back and typed something else in. I’m sorry, I was interrupting you. What’s your next question?

For a long time writing had nothing to do with –

Sorry I was just attacked by a bin. Spirited brute, but I eventually o’ercame it. Threw me right off my stride, though. Please forgive me, do go on.

For a long time…
…

For a long time writing had nothing to do with shooting real internet people in the face, so how much narrative thought and work goes into the objectives and level layouts in Quake Wars or Brink, and how much of it is a case of, "Hey, we should have a bomb in a crashed spaceship!"?
An awful lot of thought goes into the levels and objectives, but the priority is always gameplay. If it’s not fun to play, it doesn’t matter if it makes neat narrative sense. Ink is cheaper than gameplay geometry, so inevitably it’s the story stuff that gets changed to match the gameplay. Alas, there’s still a basic tension between what we as writers would like the game to be about, and what players spend all their time doing in it. The plot isn’t the story of the game, the story of the game is the sum of the player’s experiences playing the game. And some of that you can shape and colour and influence in artful, craftful ways. And some of it you just can’t. Occasionally I mutter and grumble when I feel as if something’s strayed from my own PERFECT AND INVIOLABLE VISION OF WHAT IT MUST SIMPLY MUST BE. And then I’ll calm down, get over myself and get on with getting the game made.

Splash Damage has always had a very community feel to it. The company started out, like a lot of the talent in the industry, producing maps for online shooters, and has continued to hire from the modding scene. Is that garage vibe still present, or have you sold your souls?
We got 10p each for ‘em. We certainly started out in the approved British amateur passionate and rather slapdash manner. But you can’t just keep throwing yourself at projects in a “let’s sleep under our desks until it’s done” sort of way, however endearingly shambolic it seems from the outside. You just break yourself that way, and perhaps more importantly, you don’t do good work. And although it took a while to realise it, this is our Job now. People depend on us. We’ve had to grow up and learn about alien notions like “scheduling” and “pacing yourself”.

Certainly in terms of hiring we realised we couldn’t just restrict ourselves to the talent pool of the mod community, ingenious and brilliant though they are. Increasingly we need people who aren’t just bright and passionate, but also know how to get a game made, on time, on budget, on schedule. We’ve hired a bunch of very very good senior people, all of whom have previously shipped several AAA titles. So if we held ourselves to this standard, we original-ish members of SD, if we applied for our own jobs, we wouldn’t be sufficiently qualified to get ‘em. It’s all far too much like Game Dev Story. I fear I’m the first Writer guy you hire, with no Program stats, low dozens Scenario stats, zero Graphics, zero Sound and a pitifully short Stamina bar. I’ve certainly been tempted at times to mutter “You want me to write the proposal for another game? I’m not sure I can give it my best”…

I’ve started affecting a suit jacket, and the occasional ironed shirt. If ye have not maturity or virtue, then at least copy their outward signs. Also, if you’re of the plump persuasion, it gives your body the illusion of shape/corners etc.

It’s odd, when I started studying screenwriting more seriously, I thought it would make me more critical, that from then on whenever I saw anything I’d say to myself “Ah, well they got THAT wrong, and THAT wrong, and should have done THIS instead”. And the absolute opposite has happened. I’m now the least critical audience possible, all my sympathy is with people producing stuff. Anyone who gets anything finished, and to market, they’re a hero. If it’s any good at all in any way, they’re a genius. If I didn’t enjoy it, well, probably it just wasn’t for me, or more likely, a bunch of very talented people worked long and hard and did the best possible job they could with the resources they had available. Making games is hard. Everything’s in the way of you telling a good story with good characters and good dialogue. It makes me look enviously at radio drama, comics and prose: there’s so little to get in the way, it’s such a straight line between the heads of the writer and the reader. Thankfully my superpower-strength Inertia and Sloth prevent me from exploring those too closely.

Now I'm going to try to get you in trouble. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it was Nerve Software and id in the original Return to Castle Wolfenstein multiplayer who established a lot of what we now recognise as a Splash Damage game: asynchronous maps, the medic and character classes, the objective-based gameplay... How did Splash Damage come to figurehead these values in the first place?
I’m oddly inspired you call them values. I had no notion ET-style gameplay had such an ethical component. Well, a lot of that actually stemmed from Splash Damage’s work on the Q3F mod, which featured classes and a heavy focus on teamwork way back in the early 2000s. The other ingredient – asynchronous map design – came from Return to Castle Wolfenstein which was in turn heavily inspired by id’s Kevin Cloud’s experiences of board games.

So when it came to developing Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, we took our own Q3F ideas combined with RtCW’s approach to map design as a starting point, and added several new twists of our own, including experience points and command posts. I suppose Splash Damage gets associated with that objective mode stuff because we’ve kept plugging ahead with it in Q3F, Wolf: ET, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and Brink. I can see why many other devs don’t, though. It’s so much harder to balance and devise objectives for.

As games go, online shooters are the polar opposite of what we tend to talk about on this blog - the artsy fartsy indie games - and yet the Enemy Territory games are some of my favourites. I think that's down to the tactical (rather than run & gun) gameplay philosophy, and the drama that's generated by an open playfield, narratively contextualised objectives, and other people. How do you see multiplayer and narrative (procedural or pre-scripted) coming together in the future? Woo, long question.
Hrm, it’s a tough ‘un. There’s a fundamental incompatibility between simultaneous narrative and interactivity in games. It’s possibly an even bigger challenge for writers than the problems of simultaneous action and dialogue in non-interactive drama. Even though the Portal games have been rightly praised sky-high, I still don’t think people quite appreciate what Valve pulled off there: what other possible setting would allow the story to consist solely of player interactivity? And be so funny? And involve no uncanny-valley-dwelling NPCs? And this from the chaps who gave us Alyx Vance in HL2, one of the most companionable companions in games. Portal 2 in particular was such a splendid union of gameplay, narrative and setting, where the story absolutely consists of the sum of the player’s inputs.

Partly, it’s down to the fact that we still describe a really enormous number of very different things as all being “games”. There are different kinds, different keys and genres and forms of gameplay, and they’re each only compatible with certain shapes and sizes and styles of story. Linear scripted SP shooters allow you to control the pacing and experiential density of the game, slow the action, block off routes, insist that players witness certain events, follow a familiar cast of characters and so on. But it’s not particularly repeatable. Or at least, unless it’s very dense, the experience of replaying it won’t be meaningfully different. MultiPlayer, with its constant chaotic player interactions, seems too busy to tell story in unless you’ve puffed and panted to set up the objectives and make the player feel like they’re Meaningful and About Something. But that’s just one kind of story: the story the writer writes. The story of the game is not the game’s story, it’s the sum of the player’s experiences playing the game. The MP game is a toolkit, ruleset and sandpit to let players author their own unique experiences. It’s a forge for them to forge their own watercooler moments. That’s why it’s worth going back to and replaying, because it’ll never play out quite the same way twice. And that procedural narrative unpredictability, as you say, can be very satisfying, even though (especially though?) it’s completely different from the narrative immersion of (generally SP) indie interactive installations. Speaking of which, aren’t Limbo and Project Zomboid great? Some of the best bits of storytelling I’ve seen in games. Very different in tone and feel and pace of action. But aren’t they both at least partly dependent on their pacing? Wouldn’t their meaning change if you set a busy MP game in those universes? Wouldn’t you lose a lot? Why I am asking you questions? What’s the year? Who’s the baby? Where do Prime Ministers come from?

Pure MP I think is going to remain a hard nut to crack, at least when it comes to linear narrative (whether “written” or procedural). Co-Op, Player(s) v Environment, traditional SP, those are all easier forms to tell a story in. Left4Dead (Valve again, I know, I know) did a great job furnishing players with a replayable game that told a beautifully detailed and compelling story, albeit one narrated by the environment rather than the characters. People just approach MP with a particular set of expectations, and narrative isn’t necessarily one of them. The danger you run trying to make MP meaningful is that it can seem like unnecessary clutter that’s in the way of you playing the game the way you want to play it rather than a welcome, added, delightful bonus. Genre is tough. Mainstream player audiences are conservative. For many gamers, story in MP is like anchovies in their ice cream: two great flavours that really don’t go together.

Finally, what's next for you and Splash Damage?
Fire alarm! Can’t talk! Bye!

Thanks for your time.
No thank you.

No thank YOU.
OK, I’m stopping typing now.

No you hang up.
No YOU hang up.

@EdStern often tweets things, while Splash Damage often makes games. These things should interest you.

Driver: San Francisco - Post Mortem & Script Samples

2011-10-04T17:33:00.002+01:00

So it's 18 months since I completed work, a month since release (to console, at any rate), and 48 hours since I finally got my hands on Driver: San Francisco. I have some thoughts on that topic.

First, it's my biggest and most polished release, so congratulations and thanks to the guys who did the real work over at Ubi Reflections. Thanks also to my agent, Sidelines, who put together the incidental dialogue team that I was a part of.

Despite being a big-bombast driving experience (ie the other end of the spectrum from my usual interests), Driver has my heart. I say this with what I hope to be a reasonable degree of independence - I never played the game before it's PC release, and I had nothing to do with game design or the central narrative thread - but Driver: San Francisco is that rarest of things: a game with a defined tone. I'm not the first person to say that the black humour, campy cop show theming and absurdist premise combine to deliver a world that works by its own rules and is a joy to inhabit.

But what exactly did I have to do with all this, and what did I learn? I produced a pretty significant portion of the Act 2 NPC dialogues - the flavour conversations (or barks) that occur when you shift into a car with a passenger. They were actually the topic of their very own bit of marketing, being as there are more lines in Driver than in Mass Effect 2. I'm not in a position to comment on that one, but I know I produced about 50,000 words across 30 characters and that others were doing similar. At any rate, RPS had some nice things to say about these dialogues in particular, so I hope they're worth discussing.

If the experience has reminded me of anything, it's that playing a game is essential to writing one. Stupid thing to say, I know, but it's amazing how often that principle is disregarded. In the case of Driver it was very much a priority job (which is a nice way of saying a rushed one), and though I asked for playable code I rolled over pretty quickly because sometimes a client just wants you to do the job you've been assigned, and are paying good money for freelancers so they have less to worry about, not more. I can't say I blame them, but I can't say I'd roll over so easily next time either.

The stuff I produced for Driver works, for the most part. If you're interested, a cursory play suggests to me that about half the in-car stuff around chapters 3-6 is mine, and you can find a full list here. A bit like putting a novel in a cupboard for six months, such a big gap between writing and playing lent me some objectivity, even to the extent that I was struggling to pick out my own characters. The darker ones work the best for me: the kid whose one day with his estranged father is ruined by Tanner's interference ("I think you broke my arm again, dad."); the hospital director who's terrified of winding up in her own intensive care unit ("You do understand our surgical staff are barely trained chimps?").

Where things falter a little is in the gameplay, or at least my lack of knowledge of it at the time. These scripts are supposed to be quick fire, simple to grasp scenarios that pack a funny / dark / atmospheric punch. Sometimes playing the game almost feels like a formality - after all, a scene is a scene, and a line entry marked 'Jump Land' or 'Scrape' seems pretty self-explanatory; but context is everything. How long is the delay between timed lines? How much more violent is a crash compared with a scrape? Does the dialogue reset if the player leaves the car?

The result is not that the good lines aren't good: the material still works; but a lot of it is lost in the mix. The ends are cut off of the wipeout lines; the story flow breaks in certain scenarios; lines you expect to be the mainstay are rarely heard.

I'm very happy with the work we did on Driver, and proud to have been involved in its development. Most of all, though, the experience cements for me what I've always suggested: that a games writer's job is still (and may be for some time) not so much to do what they're told, but to do what they ought. I failed to uphold that principle and at times, and perhaps only to me, it shows in the game.

If you're interested in the practicalities of writing for games you can check out a sample from the Driver: San Francisco script over at the Narrative Design Resource.

Ride the Wild Rumpus!

2011-09-24T13:09:00.000+01:00

New London indie party game night, Wild Rumpus, is just what we need.

Gaming isn't cool. I'm as surprised as you are. Even the name, 'gaming' - sounds kinda seedy, no? Almost like the games are playing us. Sad fact is that the games we really hold up as meaningful still carry teenage baggage (yes, Planescape tells a smart, inventive and evocative story; yes the girls mostly still have big tits and can be talked into bed after you've slain a few hundred goblins), and our mode of enjoyment still tends to be cooped up in a bedroom or lounge, alone, giggling to ourselves. We don't have the same mass participation and discussion that cinema promotes, or the same celebrity culture that marks the upper echelons of literature and drama. Hell, I went to watch a girlfriend at a L'Oreal hair colouring (not dressing, colouring) competition half a decade ago and I remember sitting in the audience watching all these passionate people and wondering how haircolouring could be cooler than the newest artistic medium on the block.

Before you say it, I know we have equivalent stuff. Starcraft tournaments, this week's Eurogamer Expo etc. But they're just not cool. I wouldn't do that on a night out. Sorry.

The Wild Rumpus is cool. Not cool in an exclusive way, but cool in a cool way, in the universal way.

The debut night consisted of one of my fave Brick lane bars filled with indie party games and music and a mix of local devs, gamers and lost ravers from the gig next door. Game of the night was undoubtedly Johann Sebatian Joust, a Playstation Move game that doesn't use a display at all, and asks players to keep their controllers still while jabbing and pushing their opponents. It's all supposed to be timed to the Bach music in the background, though that was way drowned out by the party. Anyway, I'd be surprised if they couldn't box this one as a standalone party game for £40.

It was excellent. The night is run (I found out by chance on the night - see, no bias) by my mate Ricky and his chums, and apparently the best way to keep up is on twitter. The next night is up in Nottingham next month, and they'll doubtless by back to East London shortly after that.

Oh, also, 2-player Super Crate Box in an arcade cabinet.

All photos copyright Natalie Seery

Some Arty Stuff From My Girlfriend

2011-09-16T11:17:00.000+01:00

I have two tags for when I'm doing some shameless plugging - one I use for when I'm plugging my stuff, and another for everything else. I've been trying to work out, when I plug my girlfriend's new blog, which one I should use.

At any rate, Rox Herve is a French artist and film-maker, and you can tell she's good because whenever she takes a photo of me she does so in black & white. This is an artist's euphemism for "you're not pretty enough for full colour".

She also writes screwed up things about screwed up films, makes marginally less screwed up films at the parties we're not supposed to have, and paints things that I find entirely incomprehensible. I ask her what the point is, she tells me that that's exactly why I've missed it, then I screw up my face in confusion and she takes another B&W snap. (Incidentally she hates having the camera turned on her, so by all means desecrate her anonymity by visiting her Facebook page.)

More importantly, though, judge her stuff for yourself.

Interview: Jenova Chen on Bondai-gate, Cultural Boundaries & Journey

2011-09-12T09:30:00.001+01:00

Jenova Chen first came to public attention with Cloud - a free download in 2005 following a soaring child interacting with a the clouds in a surreal dreamscape. Jumping on that success and founding thatgamecompany, Jenova's team moved into a three game deal with Sony which has seen similarly inventive and zen-like offerings fl0w and Flower released on PSN, and which will culminate with this year's Journey.

Hi Jenova. There's not a lot of writing in your games, and yet you clearly put a lot of stead in expressing drama and - to my mind most successfully - evoking emotion in more fundamental and perhaps less immediate fashion. Is the absence of words a conscious decision, and if so why?

I decided to do that mainly because I had a hard time at my screen writing class in the USC film school. While I did manage to earn an A in the end of the semester through some ridiculous amount of work, I realized that I can’t really write solid dialogs considering I didn’t grow up in the western culture and English is my second language. I can only write fictions, things that’s not heavily rooted in the local culture. So as a way of avoiding this problem, I figured it’s best for me to focus on things that is more universal, things that can cross the boundary of culture and language.

I remember playing Cloud on release. It seems to me the sort of time that the indie community was really starting to flourish on the PC. How has the community / market changed since you started out, and do you miss the PC?

It’s a time where online download-able game is only accessible through PC. And all console games have to be sold through retail, which adds a huge budget to the cost of a video games. At that time PC is the only way a small budget indie game can be distributed. Now the world has changed so much that every device seems to have an online access to games. And the distribution cost is so low now that anybody in a garage can make an iOS or Android games. I don’t believe the personal computer will exist in 10 years. We are in a post PC device era. So I don’t miss PC :)

Journey was well entrenched in my most anticipated last year, and it seems we're finally being drip fed some details. One thing I'm still slightly in the dark on is what sort of interactions two players will be having. Are they puzzle solving together? Are they simply there?

Journey is not a co-op game in which player has to work together to solve a puzzle. The other player is there more about sharing the experience. With that said, there is subtle benefits being close to the other player. In Journey player can recharge their energy by touching things made of cloth, so is the remote player. Veteran players probably would show you secret areas and short cuts they’ve discovered in the past.

Auteur theory. I know you've been asked about it before, but particularly in light of the recent LA Noire scandal (in which Team Bondi Boss Brendan McNamara uses his self-professed auteur status to justify appalling working conditions) I wanted to ask how responsible you feel for thatgamecompany's output, and whether you think the auteur has a place in our industry?

I certainly would support auteur theory, since that’s how Cinema evolved so rapidly from limited content controlled by big production studio into an indie film movement supported by a wide range of content and memorable names. While Mr.McNamara used that status to make everyone else work extra hours for him. At thatgamecompany we don’t encourage crunch time on our team members. Any extra hours are completely volunteered. As the director for the game, I felt obligated to putting the extra hours to make the game perfect. While I believe I work just as hard as Mr.McNamara, I don’t want to enforce others into a crunch without their own will.

For all the energy I expend on topics like emotion and drama I still let loose in APB Reloaded or Left4Dead 2 every once in a while. Which games are your guilty pleasures?

I still need a daily dose of games like Street Fighter 4, DOTA, League of Legend for my male competitive satisfaction. Recently I’ve been trying to follow up with the social games, I played Smurf Ville, Tiny Tower and Zombie Farm for quite a while.

Thanks for your time.

You can keep up with thatgamecompany very easily.

The End - A Philosophical Game About Death: Worth Writing Home About?

2011-09-05T13:46:00.002+01:00

Preloaded and Channel 4 have finally gotten around to releasing their much anticipated (by me, at least) edutainment (groan) game, The End. It's a platformer that asks the player to consider, better understand and (arguably) question their beliefs around death.

The game itself - like The Curfew and Privates before it - is the product of C4's educational budget being thrown at interactive endeavours and, like those games, proves an ambitious, valuable, yet somewhat flawed offering.

The platforming is just god-awful. The framerate stutters, the level design is pedestrian and sometimes downright obscure, and there is simply nothing of import to do in the world beyond bagging a few collectables and reaching the philosophical query at the end. It's ironic that player death is treated so simplistically in a game which takes that topic as its muse, and it becomes very clear very quickly that all this running about is filler, unrelated to what lies at the heart of the experience: that promise of existential exploration.

I first became aware that Preloaded were shooting for something interesting when I met them at World of Love, and that ambition shines through in the metagame and community hub they've provided as part of the experience. Each level explicitly asks the player something about their beliefs: 'Is there a soul?', 'Should we have the right to choose when we die?' etc. Each answer helps to plot your position on a chart as compared to other players / friends / famous thinkers, and place you into one of four categories. I got the Truth-teller, which basically means I'm a cold-hearted rationalist who doesn't give a damn if no-one agrees with him. Which is largely bang-on; although given the very broad strokes used to categorise (essentially are you rational or spiritual, and are you empathetic or an anti-social tosser like me?) perhaps this shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

Where the educational angle comes in is that for every question answered a brief discussion of the topic is displayed, along with links to further reading and philosophers who thought similarly. It's somewhat telling of where Preloaded's real passion lies that they actually allow you to participate in this part of the game without completing more than one level: the questions can all be answered in the profile tab.

While this side of the game clearly isn't aimed at Philosophy grads, there is one immediate criticism I can see being brought to bear, which is that this method of feedback seems like it may instigate a loop. Let's say I'm a 13 year old with a faintly Christian upbringing (which I was, once) and by default I tell the game that I believe in the soul and an afterlife. The game then validates my unreasoned faith by categorising me as something romantic like 'The Mystic', and seals the deal by referring me to a bunch of philosophers who think the same way. Have my beliefs been brought into question, or simply given a new kind of legitimacy? While the game goes someway towards addressing this by providing a neutral discussion of each topic and telling players in no uncertain terms whether their beliefs are predicated on reason or blind faith, there's a pervading sense that encouraging the audience to think about the validity of their beliefs (as is done successfully here) is a lesser priority than simply encouraging them to start thinking.

This, of course, is arguably no great criticism. Most great thinkers began (and many continued) by searching for legitimate reasons to believe whatever they wanted to believe; the very best often failed and started again from scratch. Preloaded's modus operandi here has been to provide support to a British teenage audience that has grown up in a largely secular society where neither spirituality nor philosophy has been readily available to help them understand topics like mortality.

In this respect - as a gateway to a way of thinking far more powerful than anything taught in schools - The End is a success. I hope next time Preloaded will succeed in integrating their ambitions into a more appealing game.

Polish: 1 out of 2
Tilt: 1 out of 2

'GAMESbrief: Traditional Games, Transition and the Power of the Free' is a Book I Helped Write

2011-08-28T15:37:00.000+01:00

One of many differences between Plot is Gameplay's Bitch and GAMESbrief is that GAMESbrief sells books with intelligent, marketing-led headers like:

"Buy GAMESbrief Unplugged Volume 2 for 40% off"

GAMESbrief also doesn't having swearing in its name.

At any rate, GAMESbrief is an industry analyst blog run by industry analyst, Nicholas Lovell. We used to work together for GameShadow, and I sometimes write stuff for his blog. Sometimes that stuff gets polished, supplemented and printed up in a lovely coffee table book called GAMESbrief Unplugged.

In the words of its author, Vol.2 features 'lots of insight from you', where 'you' is referring to me. Also:

If you want to know what really happened at Realtime Worlds, and how to avoid the same thing happening to you, you need to read this book.
If you want to understand what role publishers and retailers will play in the future of the games industry, you need to read this book.
If you want to be prepared for the next decade in a fast-changing games industry, you need to read this book.

So, that's enough shameless plugging for one month. Go buy for anywhere from £8.97 - £60.

Most Anticipated 2011 Part 3

2011-08-17T07:24:00.000+01:00

03. Monaco
Andy Schatz
PC, "at least one console"

Damn do I like the look of Monaco. A top-down indie co-op stealth game, it's all the things I love: indie, co-op, stealth. And top-down. It's Thief meets L4D, if we're going there, or as the developer puts it, 'Gauntlet meets Hitman', which also at least 50% floats my boat.

Much like Nidhog, Monaco offers new way to play with friends, but it's the purity of its stealth that entices me. For such a well-loved genre and - at least as subsystem in actions games - omnipresent genre stealth seems to have been suffering a dearth of content for some time. Hitman's on hiatus, Thief 4's still hush hush, and the linear simplicity of the Splinter Cells and Manhunts knows where the itch is but can't fully reach around to scratch it.

Monaco looks fantastic. The perspective complements the gameplay. My only fear is that it may prove too quick fire: too much online tomfoolery and not enough quality dramatic content. Obviously there's a massive market for that, and fair play to it. For me, though, the core joy of a stealth game is the exploration - the sense that through our own guile we're accessing a living world that we have no right to. I hope Andy Schatz shares that perspective.

02. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Eidos Montreal
23 August 2011
PC, PS3, 360

Another sequel, another beloved franchise handed over to a new team. Why should we be excited about Human Revolution? Well for starters everyone that's played it says it's Deux Ex. As in it's a first-person action RPG with branching story, multiple solutions and intelligent cyber-punk writing. These are good things.

While trying to make X-wing work the other day I stumbled accross this RPS list of the most important PC games ever. Funnily enough Deus Ex wasn't on there, but what struck me was what they had to say about a much more personal favourite: Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines (too many colons to bother).

Bloodlines is important because it signposts a direction to a future of games that we were denied. It is a lament, and a warning. It’s also brilliant.

At first I wanted to to scoff, but when you do get to thinking about Vampire's lineage, what's out there? The Witchers and Dragon Ages follow a much more traditional high-content, low-detail path, and really when I'm pushed to name a single RPG with the fidelity of world and narrative that Vampire hosted all I can come up with is Mass Effect 2.

Here's hoping we can add Deus Ex: Human Revolution to that list very shortly.

01. Hitman: Absolution
IO Interactive
2012
PC, PS3, 360

Oh yes. I've expressed my Hitman-love in the past, so it's natural this five-years-in-the-making follow up should top my list. Above all else, Hitman is a dynamic, open ended and detailed world simulator that just so happens to let you murder people in it. I wouldn't really care if you were just there to fix the plumbing, provided I had to navigate pool parties, arsey security guards and drunk women to do so.

Somewhat akin to Bioshock Infinite, the guys at IO are talking up the technology and experience that's finally allowing them to deliver the depth of AI that the genre demands. It's an incredible challenge in balancing - how do you make people smart enough to seem real yet dumb enough to provide freedom within the gameplay? It's also one that can't really be demonstrated fairly in a trailer.

Will IO manage it? Well, the series has a reputation for pushing the bar with each successive entry - see Blood Money's crowd scenes and flexible solution design - while somehow honing and polishing the formula simultaneously. It's also done when it's done. 2012 could be the year Hitman finally realises its extraordinary potential.

A few lessons learnt from Kane & Lynch in the story department wouldn't go amiss, though.

Most Anticipated 2011 Part 2

2011-08-10T13:52:00.000+01:00

06. Prey 2
Human Head Studios
March 2012
PC, PS3, 360

You'd think this was The Times' sudoku page there are so sequential numbers in this year's list. Prey 2 completely revamps what was a solid and occasionally inventive sci-fi shooter, by removing the perfunctory portals, central character and setting and using Blade Runner's instead. This is, probably, a good thing.

It's hard to describe why I'm excited about Prey 2. It's probably not a good reason: it's probably that all those free running, bounty hunting trailers promise an open, fleshed out world that I'm mentally populating with my personal wishlist.

Original or not, I want to explore a Blade Runner type alien city. I want to inhabit the shoes of an Eastwood-style bounty hunter in a world that reacts to my actions. I want a kind of a cross between Anachronox and Bioshock, only better than both and with more shoulder mounted rockets.

That'll be the day.

05. Bioshock Infinite
Irrational
Q2 2012
PC, PS3, 360

Obligatory really. The Bioshock's didn't live up to my expectations, largely because they weren't really the spiritual follow up to the System Shocks we were initially promised. Infinite finally introduces live human characters, and I'm interested to see if Levine and his team know how to do that - by their own admission it's only now that they feel prepared to tackle that.

This said, there are some games on this list I'm endlessly excited about for no particular reason, and then there's Bioshock Infinite, which I'm told I should be more excited about than I am. Perhaps it's the legacy of the series and the crowd-pleaser expectation the team and the publisher naturally have to pursue. Perhaps it's all the explosions and falling in those gameplay videos.

I'm staying quiet on this one.

04. Arkham City
Rocksteady
18 October 2011
PC, PS3, 360

And yet I've got so much to shout about Arkham City. Funny, huh? This is a game delivering exactly what a sequel delivers: the same good stuff, only bigger, prettier and more polished. Why should that be so enthralling?

Arkham Asylum was, simply put, one of the best games I've ever played, albeit emphasis on game. At a time when the Bioshocks and Bayonettas leave me cold, Arkham Asylum grabbed me through its every breath: one of the most satisfying, beautiful and tactical combat systems of any game ever; a world that felt consistent and engaging in a way reminiscent of an N64 Zelda game; a character and associated set of abilities and bad guys to use them on that were powerful and steeped in lore.

Arkham City isn't going to be the best written game of the year. It isn't going to change how we do things or how we look at the world. It is going to be one of the best and perhaps even one of the smarter AAAs we have to look forward to. If you're going to do AAA bombast, you do it with the care, respect and invention that UK devs Rocksteady are guaranteed to apply.

Watch this space for part 3, coming soon.

Most Anticipated 2011 Part 1

2011-08-02T11:45:00.002+01:00

Last year I did a great big preview of the 15 games I was looking forward to. Six of them are out, and a couple of predictions from the time ring true:

"That Team Bondi expects us to be able to tell whether or not we're being deceived at all is a unique and crucial step forward; that we're expected to do so not from what characters say but from how they say it renders this an exciting experiment indeed."

"For all the brilliance of writing Portal displayed, in terms of delivery it was rarely a game that introduced anything new. But then, when the content is this good I guess that can be forgiven."

Anyway, it got some good clicks, and I even got to work on one of the games in the list, so I'm doing it again. This is, really, a very subjective 'E3 Made Me Want This' list, expect E3 was ages ago.

09. Max Payne 3
Rockstar Vancouver
December 2011
PC, PS3, 360

When I think of Max Payne I think of a guilty pleasure - ridiculous noire posturing and a central mechanic designed entirely around making the player look cool for minimal effort on his part. To say that that's Max's legacy would be to underplay him, though. For all the tongue that's in his cheek it's a wonder he can narrate at all, but the writing style remains a key strength in a game released at a time when 'style' tended to focus on how much of the screen the word 'HEADSHOT' took up.

That the dev rights now fall to Rockstar's in-house stable rather than creators Remedy shouldn't concern too much. These guys know the franchise thanks to their involvement throughout the series, and they also know entertaining writing.

The Brazilian setting seems all kinds of wrong; so does the newly heavy set star. There's little doubt Max Payne 3 will deliver pretty, satisfying gunplay - but it's always been about more than that. Max Payne is about a linear game world that offers surprising depth through intelligent detail like the Pink Flamingo TV serial or the interactive funhouse. It's about poignancy through the ludicrous, and even style (or at least structure) over substance.

Suddenly getting the bullet time right seems like the easy part.

08. SSX: Deadly Descents
EA Canada
2012
PS3, 360

God I love SSX. Sure, that's in part because it makes me feel a bit like the mainstream - I can't beat my housemates at Pro Evo or GT, but strap a pair of planks to my virtual feet and I'm off.

SSX On Tour - the last non-Wii iteration from 2005 - stands up as the highlight of the series. Aside from having excellent manly dress-up options its presentation, its accessibility and above all its sound design stand out. From the intro sequence cut to Iron Maiden's Run To The Hills, to the dynamic system that layers the assorted indie rock and electro tracks to reflect your speed and creativity, On Tour was a beautiful, polished experience that to this day reminds me that games can be important to me without bothering to be important.

There's no team on the planet with snowboarding experience like EA Canada, and Deadly Descents is exactly the adrenaline shot this under-supported genre needs.

07. Nidhog
Messhof

Everyone seems to be talking about Nidhog. Everyone seems to have played Nidhog, even though there's no official release date in sight. I particularly enjoy this faux interview discussing the high end performance capture the game doesn't have. It almost had me going.

Nidhog allows two players to compete in an unending adventure of combat and abstract visualisation. Drawing unashamed notes from Prince of Persia one player's goal is to move unerringly right, the other the inverse; simple arcade swordplay occurs when the two meet. It's fast, frantic, yet retains the promise of tactical play and immense pay off with each successive victory - albeit a pay off that only lasts as long as your opponent's spawn delay.

I like Nidhog because it's pretty, because it's social, and because it threatens to redefine how we interact with one another. Naturally it does so in a very humble way, but nonetheless it feels like something fresh.

Part 2 coming soon.

What Games Would You Recommend a Non-Gamer?

2011-07-27T14:10:00.003+01:00

I was contacted recently by a professional writer from outside the industry who was interested in exploring interactive narrative for the first time. She asked for my professional opinion on a few games I could recommend as a good starting point. Rather than actually, you know, do that, I thought I'd open up the discussion because it's an interesting one.

What games would actually hold up on a narrative level to someone who isn't so accustomed to the sort of suspension of disbelief that's unique to games? We're all very used to ignoring things like repeated lines, dodgy voice, inexpressive animation, objective exposition and finding interesting features in space marine stories; but compared to film these features must appear very stilted and amateur (with which I don't have a problem).

So a game to recommend would have to deliver a story which ideally minimises these issues, and gameplay which is comprehensible to someone not already fluent in WASD and stick-to-cover. Most importantly it would have to demonstrate our relative unique strengths (ie interaction).

My temptation, of course, is to approach this with a kind of gaming cannon - Elite, Thief, Planescape etc - but of course the antiquity of these games would deter many modern gamers, let alone an outsider.

Here's Talaya's request in her own words:

"I wondered, if you had a minute, if you could suggest two
or three (or even four) games to introduce the world of gaming to a
non-gamer -- (new games, old games, anything.) It'd be great to have
a starting point from a professional game writer."

Here are some starting points from my end.

Braid - Explore your past experiences and relationships a-chronologically. Braid's a platformer that draws on Mario's ubiquity but marries that formula with inventive time manipulation gameplay mechanics that reflect on the somewhat obscure, but certainly ambitiously poetic narrative.

Echo Bazaar - Enter a twisted, alternate version of Victorian London. This is a web MMORPG (a game based around character progression in a persistent online world) which doesn't particularly innovate on a mechanical level, but which does employ engaging, inventive fantasy writing as an absolutely central selling point in its world design.

Dinner Date or Dear Esther - Strange bedfellows, I know. Both are short narrative experiences in which the player's actions simply shape his experience of the same broadly linear narrative. Dinner Date is dialogue heavy and sees your character sink into his own psychoses as he awaits the girl who's never coming round. Dear Esther sees you exploring a deserted island where the environment is the greatest dramatic force in play.

Portal 1 - Explore a largely abandoned research facility run by a psychotic robot lady. Yep, this one's a mainstream game. This is the most polished, most complete and most traditional offering here. It's a character study and dark comedy before anything else; but it's also one of the best and most accessible puzzle games ever made. It's also, however, the most game-y game here: you'll need to learn some basic gamer skills like 3D aiming and quick reactions to get a handle on it. Incidentally, Portal 2 is probably more accessible and more polished, but for my money Portal 1's minimal / isolationist narrative is far more interesting.

Heavy Rain - Heavy Rain is very much a made for TV movie, a cliche murder mystery. What it lacks in dramatic quality, though, it makes up for in accessibility, polish and interactive narrative involvement. I almost didn't list it because much of it is somewhat embarrassing: the write-by-numbers structure and the (arguable) misogyny. However, as an accessible experience that puts interactive drama at its centre there are few alternatives that seem more likely to engage a non-gamer.

Everyday The Same Dream - A simply presented 2D adventure expressing a common theme: the monotony and meaninglessness of life. This game uses all the tools at its disposal expertly: its simple score, monotone graphics, faceless avatars and intelligent use of colour all work towards the game's central trick: the use of video game objectives and the requirement they be unlearnt in order to reach the end. It's a simple example of how a familiar theme can be expressed in an entirely new way to provide engagement with the material impossible in any other medium.

But this post isn't about what I think. What would you recommend Talaya or anyone else looking to get involved with our medium?

Say Hello At Develop

2011-07-18T18:20:00.000+01:00

As ever I'll be at Develop Conference again this year. I'll be down from Wednesday evening to Thursday evening, checking out the indie track on the last day, along with all the usual afterparties.

Whether you're a budding games writer, a journo looking for a quote, a potential client or just a long-time lurker I'd love to have a natter - as well as catch up with some old faces. My contact details are here, and the best way to get in touch is via email or on the phone on the day.

We'll also be continuing the fine tradition of the journo/indie doss house at the excellent Grapevine Seafront - if you're at a loss for a bed you could do a lot worse.

See you by the sea.

Tom in Wonderland: A Free, Crap, 1 Min Platformer

2011-07-17T18:12:00.000+01:00

While trying to have breakfast this morning I found myself on the receiving end of my housemates' artistic 'talents' (apologies, guys, for the quotes - I know at least one of you is actually on an art degree). Toast wolfed down, what was I to do with the assorted doodles and insulting caricatures?

I made a game.

It has a wicked and entirely unlicensed soundtrack, and is a collaborative effort. These are probably the only good things about it, save for the length.

Play it at your peril. Needless to say I am the butt of many jokes.

Here's what the developers of the game are already saying about it:

"It's a massive orgy corroborating existentialist tangents delivering a cathartic experience."

"It's art."

Play 'Tom in Wonderland' and find out whether or not I'll ever be a rockstar.

ir/rational Redux Almost Ready

2011-07-11T22:01:00.003+01:00

A while ago I put out a call to an artist who wanted to help me remake my indie logic game, ir/rational, in Flash. æclipse µattaru was kind enough to offer his services, and after a couple of months' work, on and off, we've got a game that's close to being launched and a bunch of lessons under our belt:

a) The Games Factory 2's image compression sucks
b) æclipse µattaru is excellent
c) It's hard to think of things to depict in a game that's mostly about a guy in an empty room

The game itself is a visually overhauled version of the original, based around the same set of puzzles, that we can deliver via Newgrounds to reach a much broader audience.

It looks like this.

Interview: Zachtronics Industries on Dynamic Puzzle Solving & Trout

2011-06-29T13:36:00.001+01:00

Zach Barth operates under the name Zachtronics Industries. He's responsible for the outstanding puzzle game with the so-so name, SpaceChem, which is probably the best puzzle game I have ever played. It's a molecular programming game whose solutions are dynamic, that never fails to respect your intelligence, and is impossibly challenging without ever turning you off. It tests logical problem solving in a far more immediate and mature fashion than my own attempt. On top of this he's infamous for developing Minecraft precursor, Infiniminer (which we're not going to talk about today because no doubt he's bored). Anyway, grab the demo and be in awe.

Hi Zach. I realised as I planned this interview that you're the first person I've talked to for Plot is Gameplay's Bitch who might not list 'writer' as their first job. On top of this, I can't claim puzzle games are regularly at the top of my play list. Why do you think SpaceChem has captured me - and other players - so thoroughly?

I think that the allure of SpaceChem for many players is the way that it approaches puzzle / problem solving. Instead of requiring you to reconstruct my contrived solution, every puzzle allows for a very large number of possible solutions, each acceptable but with different performance characteristics. This gives players a clear goal, but an unprecedented amount of room to be creative, innovative, and iterative in creating their solutions.

I usually found that I could come in above average in play cycles (time efficiency of the solution), but way over the top on symbols (the complexity of the solution). Maybe I'm trying to be too clever for my own good, or maybe I'm just not as smart as I think. I'm fascinated by the metrics you collect on players - any interesting insights? Are there traits certain types of players share?

One of my favourite experiments we’ve run is SpaceChem: An Average Solution, where we used some clever visual post processing to average out hundreds of solutions for the “research” puzzles in SpaceChem. It allows you to see how solutions for different kinds of levels (tutorials versus simple levels versus hard levels) converge and diverge based on the constraints of the puzzle, which I think is very neat.

With regard to how players respond to the graphs, I think that many take to them the same way that you do. The first time you beat a level you’re almost certainly not at the top, but the graphs invite you to find a dimension of optimization that interests you and improve it in that aspect. The fact that the dimensions are mutually exclusive helps to make players who choose to optimize feel awesome, as graphs are filled both with people who wanted to optimize that aspect and people who chose not to optimize that aspect to optimize another.

You've been working on this basic programming play through a series of games, but SpaceChem displayed an unprecedented level of polish in its visuals, soundtrack and narrative. Do you want to shout out to your contributors?

Without a doubt!

I had two programmers, Collin Arnold and Keith Holman, who handled a majority of the coding tasks and freed me up to focus on tasks related to design and production. The remaining tasks were outsourced to talented individuals: Ryan Sumo for the majority of the artwork, Ken Bowen for sound effects, Evan Le Ny for the soundtrack, and Hillary Field for the narrative. Without them, there would be no SpaceChem!

You've spoken previously about how the emergent nature of the solutions is a strong point of engagement, and I think that's what interests me here where point & clicks or LA Noire (for example) fail: in building a solution within the game logic, rather than just discovering the pre-authored one. Is that an approach you'd consider expanding to subjects other than molecules and engineering systems? Narrative linearity seems jarring by comparison.

Yes, definitely, although I think it’s far easier to apply the principle to games like SpaceChem that are highly mechanics-driven. If I had to explain why this was the case, I would guess that it’s because this kind of system fundamentally expects and requires the player to design something as a solution, which translates into a strong sense of agency, which in turn drives engagement. I’m not sure how it would work in an interactive story like LA Noire, but I certainly don’t think it’s the only route to take.

Finally, what's next for you? Can you spill any details that I can spin into a headline? "SpaceChem dev turns hand to Facebook trout farming sim" would be ideal.

I wish I could tell you something that exciting! We’re focused right now on the transition to being a full-time studio and wrapping up SpaceChem development. Trout farming does sound kind of interesting, though…

Thanks for your time.

You can check out all Zach's games at http://www.zachtronicsindustries.com/

LA Noire: Worth Writing Home About?

2011-06-21T00:38:00.000+01:00

This is the first Worth Writing Home About?. It's a review series focusing on innovation and subjectivity, and you can read more on the scoring here.

Granted, my crime scene investigation technique is somewhat esoteric. It's not like you see Jessica Fletcher doing a lap of the room before zigzagging back tot he door, all the while ignoring the witnesses while she frantically hammers X just in case that one innocuous looking book is in some way relevant to the case. (I kid, of course: books are never important in LA Noire. You know, apart from that one time). Anyway, it works for me.

It turns out LA Noire is not the game I was expecting it to be when I placed it No.1 in last year's Most Anticipated (really should get the new one of those sorted). In every respect it is far worse than I could have imagined - save for the important one.

My overwhelming impression of LA Noire is that a bunch of indies got to make their dream adventure game with a GTA budget, half of which they threw at facial animation, the rest of which they turned into a delicious though nutritionally bereft soufflé. Truth is, of course, that Team Bondai was founded by ex-The Getaway guy, Brendan McNamara, and that in all likelihood the adventure game trappings came some time after the 'GTA: 1940s' blueprint was in place. Thank god they did.

This game is amazingly shoddy
I'm shocked too. We've all heard that the shooting and driving are rubbish. It amazes me that studios still believe providing a successful open world means literally that: drawing a city and leaving the player to his devices. Truth is that GTA or Baldur's Gate succeed by populating their worlds with interesting, dynamic and believable elements. LA Noire joins the likes of Thief: Deadly Shadows in developing a large and expensive open world that merely functions as a pretty yet long-winded loading screen.

The rest of the problems include: tedious crime scene investigation that harks back to the pixel-hunting of early Point & Clicks, rough animation and general presentation, and the belief that the best way to reward players for 15 hours of painstaking interrogation and puzzle solving is with a sewer level and a flamethrower. Seriously. Of course, the fact that there are so many borderline-insulting, school-boy mistakes would perhaps be less apparent if not for the GTA comparisons, and the groundbreaking semi-success of the game's all-important interrogations.

Interrogations & MotionScan
MotionScan is incredible.

That deserved its own paragraph. It's rare technology in games excites me that much, but truly delivering expressive facial performances is something that stands to turn interactive story telling on its head.

By comparison to the tech, Team Bondi's interrogation gameplay around it seems - like the rest of the game - somewhat flawed; and that's difficult to say because LA Noire's interrogations have been some of the most engaging, thought-provoking and audience-pleasing moments I've had with games in some time. When it works - when you're not relying on evidence and when the character isn't entirely hamming it up - it works.

But then the still-learning-the-ropes design slips back in. Doubting someone is used for when you have no evidence but you think they're lying; but it's also used for when someone's telling the truth but not the whole truth. And it can't be used for when someone's lying and you've got evidence to prove it. But then using evidence at all is trial and error in the worst point & click tradition: logical combinations don't make sense, and the right answer is sometimes bizarre. The only difference between this and 20 years ago is that now we're punished for trying something that's wrong.

In an upcoming interview with SpaceChem's Zach Barth we discuss why his dynamic puzzle solving is so much more engaging than challenges with prescribed solutions. LA Noire exposes the problem no less.

The story doesn't help
The over-arching one, that is. So often in games I'm enjoying the setting and the character, happy inhabiting his life believably; and then someone asks me to go save the world and things spiral into the extraordinary, and therefore the plain familiar. LA Noire's strongest cases are early on, where you're dealing with beaten wives, framings and hit & runs, without any of the city-wide corruption plotting the team thought was necessary for it to be considered a 'story'. This emphasis actively damages the gameplay throughout in a bunch of ways. I don't think it spoils anything to say that it's made very clear early on that many of the people you're arresting have been framed by a bigger villain, and that your naming the perpetrator is meaningless. Towards the final quarter of the game this becomes a bigger issue when that interrogation mechanic - frankly the only system still holding its head above the water - is entirely thrown out in favour of shoot ups and more pixel-hunting.

There's also the open homage to traditional film noire and - more explicitly - LA Confidential. Playing in B&W is a (sensibly) rare experience that works well here should you choose to turn it on, and it's certainly this that adds more atmosphere than the blank-faced world and the almost-blank-slate-if-he-wasn't-such-a-twat central character, Phelps.

Making the case
So this has been a largely negative write up for a game that's engaged me more than most. I find it bizarre and almost satisfying that - while by no means bad - such an overall average game, with so little of the familiar AAA bombast, can sell so well. I'm happy it has, because it's not so much this game that excites me as it is the DLC and the sequel.

The current iteration of the series does nothing more than steal focus from the real dramatic centre piece: the individual tales of love, adultery and jealousy that have been sourced from genuine period records; the ways in which you can interact with and manipulate these stories and characters; and the thrill of being a 1940s detective whose last resort is his sidearm. That this element holds so much promise is why it's so hard to stomach the mistakes that hold it back.

The production values, the uncomfortable interrogation logic, the narrative balance - these are things that will be fixed in time.

La Noire is a bizarrely pedestrian experience, but its radical facial animation technology and interrogation gameplay make it an essential and engaging interactive drama whose ripples we'll be seeing for some time.

Polish: 1 out of 2
Tilt: 2 out of 2

New Review Format: Worth Writing Home About?

2011-06-20T17:09:00.001+01:00

Worth Writing Home About? is a new type of content for this blog: it's a review. But not just any review - it's one that focuses on innovation, and on interactive drama. Things have improved a lot over the last ten years - we have more voices than ever highlighting the new, the avant guarde and the ambitious in games; but there are still few mainstream outlets that would dare give a fun, polished game 50% because it doesn't do anything interesting. Too often games are treated as if they contain objective quantities of fun.

Worth Writing Home About? is supposed to recognise that taste is subjective, that entertainment isn't our only demand, and that in order for us to continue making better games we need to respect the ones that take the risks.

The Polish score is equivalent to most scores: how fun, how pretty, how successful is the game?
The Tilt score expresses how much a game changes the rules and progresses our medium.

Polish scoring goes like this:
0/2 - Rough as balls. You'd be hard pressed to enjoy this, though it's conceivable.
     eg Boiling Point, ET: The Extraterrestrial
1/2 - Conceivably holds entertainment value for many. This is 90% of cases.
   eg Half-Life 2: Ep 2, Duke Nukem Forever, The Ship
2/2 - You'd struggle not to have fun with this, it's a real masterwork.
     eg Portal, Mario Galaxy, Okami

Tilt scoring goes like this:
0/2 - Does nothing we've never seen before
   eg GTA IV: Episodes From Liberty City, Mafia 2
1/2 - Innovates in at least one interesting or successful way, but nothing groundbreaking. This is 90% of cases.
     eg Duke Nukem Forever, Portal 2
2/2 - Does something that future games will (or should) learn from
     eg Portal, Darwinia, The Ship

I know I'm not the first person to shout, "AAA isn't innovative!". I know I don't have the resources to be reviewing everything out there. But I do hope that when a game is interesting enough for me to have stuff to say, this will prove a useful format to encourage/discourage your interest in it. Naturally there's going to be a bit of scoring skew - I'm unlikely to be playing many 0/2 on the Tilt scale.

Finally, these won't be narrative themed reviews in particular, but do expect a natural bias.

Keep your eyes here for the LA Noire review coming shortly (yet still way out of date).

Designing a Dialogue System From Scratch Part 3: The System

2011-06-14T13:50:00.000+01:00

This is the final part of a discussion that began here. Next up we're considering how to model self-control & personal expression during dialogue.

Self-control: This is the tricky one. As long as we allow the player to consider his approach and choose his tone he's arguably too far removed from the scenario to truly struggle with self-control as we do in real life. To be truly successful, I think a dialogue system has to encourage the player to make decisions that he knows are to his detriment, simply because of who he is. Time limits tackle this to some degree - simply don't allow the player time to think so he reacts more instinctively. Strong characterisation of NPCs is also crucial: if we aren't invested in who we're talking to it's very easy to choose the 'correct' path. However, if we present the 'correct' path (ie the one with the greatest rewards and fastest / funnest route to completion) as opposed to the one which provides us revenge on someone we hate then we're forced to balance one against the other.

     - Two types of conversation: This is harking back to that original line in the sand between dramatic, goal-oriented conversation and more social, everyday dialogue, as well as KOTOR II's [Lie] mechanic. If we're struggling to simultaneously reward the player for achieving goals through performance and expressing his personality, why not signpost them as two different systems? The game tells the player when he's talking to someone who's not going to be their friend and is there to be manipulated, and when he's talking to someone who's not worth putting an act on for. This way the serious do gooder can preach to his allies and attract those of a similar disposition, while the cocky comedian can drop that personality to get things done without fear the game will assume he's turned into a pansy.

     - Personality tracking: I think I read somewhere that Alpha Protocol does this. Instead of saying 'this sort of personality won't work with this character' and therefore forcing players out of their role play in order to achieve objectives, we allow for all personalities to work equally. We pre-program a set of personalities (base it on Briggs Myers, or some basic classes like 'joker', 'do gooder', 'professional' etc), detect which options the player tends to pick, and then present more options in those areas. It rewards consistent players, and means that if the joker tries to pull off sincere he'll have a tougher time of it (fewer options in that category or harder mini-games) than the guy who talks that way all the time. It needs very careful handling - the joker shouldn't be unable to express anger with a character he hates just because the game thinks he doesn't get angry often.

   - Emotion input: By this system, we allow the player all the usual luxuries of dialogue trees: carefully considering his approach and manipulating characters without care for his own personality or emotion. However, we also ask him to honestly input his emotion. Is he angry, scared, confused? We then use that information in inventive ways. Sometimes (based on pre-authoring, a mini-game or skill check) it has absolutely no effect. Sometimes it will result in an aside to an ally. Sometimes it'll result in the character failing to conceal the emotion and having it affect the dialogue in surprising ways. We encourage the player not to consider this a failure; not to game the system by always selecting 'calm and collected'; but to take it as a valuable and meaningful element of the experience. More so games are sold not on competing for high scores, not ont getting to the end, but on how you get to the end. This approach gives players a new way in which to take that conceit and run with it.

So, have we actually concluded anything?
If there's one thing games have always struggled with, it's how to handle failure; yet it's failure that's the core element currently missing from most interactive dialogue systems. We can't allow the player to put himself in an unwinnable position, and we're not bold enough to say to him "This character doesn't like you for no better reason than you're you." We always want to give him his power fantasies.

To my mind there are two key directions that come out of all this. One is the dynamic, image-based system which really needs a whole essay of its own, and is as much an AI and psychological concern as it is a narrative one.

The other is, I must concede, still a dialogue tree of sorts; but it's a dialogue tree built from the ground up with the intention of modelling realistic dialogue traits with the same depth of simulation that we apply to the end of a gun. It looks something like this:

- Strong characterisation and the threat of punishing / unsatisfying gameplay may be used to encourage and represent self-control or lack thereof. Does the player feel strongly enough in a given scenario to sacrifice reward in favour of personal gratification? Investment is encouraged by not rendering every route as equal in reward, and not using scenarios that affect the character but not the player. A quick example: the guard tells us we can't enter the city. For the character this might be really annoying; for the player it makes no difference because he knows that if he needs to enter the city the game will allow him to do so somehow. This is absolutely crucial - there must be no logical gap between the character's emotion and the player's. There should be no game objectives or mechanics that aren't legitimate elements of real conversation (for example we're encouraged to help people in RPGs because we're rewarded with experience; as a result we don't fully express ourselves).
- Input is in the form of keywords and emotions: The player can't tell what's important by looking at a list of sentences; he must use his intuition and perception to identify key topics and approaches. Where appropriate he's encouraged to express his personality.
- Mini-games provide active challenge and allow for unexpected successes or failures
- It's linear in overarching topic: a game which places conversation as its central mechanic doesn't need dead ends and cul-de-sacs any more than Call of Duty needs the option to get back on the chopper, go home and become a gardener.
- It uses a time limit to maintain natural flow and encourage more instinctive reactions & mistakes
- It doesn't use stats: your success is based on your own ability, apart from in areas where stats make sense such as group formation and prior knowledge
- Branching is used for key decisions and to discover new information without altering the fundamental direction or flow of conversation. It is triggered by some or all of:
     - Conscious, signposted decision points
     - The use of predefined pieces of prior knowledge
     - Mini-game success
     - Perception of keywords during dialogue
     - Personality detection (ie how often the player adopts certain tones and personality traits)
- Conversations may be signposted as goal or social focused so the player is free to manipulate and express his personality in equal measure.

I don't know if this is quite the revolutionary new approach we might have liked to come up with. It's possibly more theoretical pipe dream than practical mechanic. I do hope, at the very least, that the discussion has presented or refined specific mechanics and their potential uses. As ever games are a process of evolution, not revolution, and it's games like LA Noire, KOTOR II and Heavy Rain that continue to make small but meaningful advances in how we interact with dialogue then the holy grail will continue to edge just that little bit closer.

Designing a Dialogue System From Scratch Part 2: Structure

2011-06-08T10:30:00.002+01:00

'Part 1: What is Dialogue' is available here.

Now we're ready to consider how to model conversation on a structural level.

The first question is what underpins the fundamental structure of our proposed dialogue system in terms of progress, input and output. In each case I'll present the usual approach and at least one more left field angle.

Progress
     - Branching: This is the approach adopted by most interactive systems. They allow for backtracking of differing degrees (Fahrenheit moves inexorably forward, most RPGs work from a central hub with certain paths that can't be rolled back on, while adventure games are usually very forgiving - you can't go wrong. It seems logical not to allow too much backtracking, to reflect the natural flow of conversation.

     - Linear: It might seem strange to propose a linear system as an interactive dialogue. Providing the player no control over the topic or direction of conversation isn't necessarily realistic, but it does grant us some unique freedoms: the conversation remains flowing, and it allows us to focus the player's attention on how he's conversing, rather than what he's conversing about. Usually in games we already force certain topics and goals - you may be free to ask about different things in different orders, but if you're talking a key NPC you're going to get to the game-crucial topic sooner or later; everything else is simply context. Fahrenheit or Alpha Protocol do provide decision points attached to story branches, but for the most part there's only really one direction to go in. Instead of providing a bad illusion of freedom, they force the topic of conversation and encourage the player to focus on the degree of success he has within that topic.

Output
   - Words / speech: Obviously we usually present dialogue in this fashion. It provides complexity and realism. These are good things.

     - Pictorial / other: However, there's another way to do things. We're already familiar with dialogue being presented without any actual words: think The Sims' Simlish, or emoticons. We can represent topics, emotions and decisions entirely visually. Naturally this limits the complexity and depth of what we're doing, but it also provides us a degree of emergent potential that simply cannot be achieved with words. Computers aren't smart enough to construct sentences on the fly, written dialogue will always require a human author, and therefore a prescribed route and set of options. In The Sims, it's possible to interact on more fundamental levels that nonetheless we all understand: humour, romance, physical expressions. Our basic inputs are interpreted by the AI Sims, compared to their personality statistics, and appropriate responses output in the same syntax. It's a system whose complexity could be scaled to a far greater degree, and could allow for far truer narrative freedom.

Input
   - List of options: The usual dialogue tree approach, but it's worth noting this is also how we'd select our emoticons and topics if using that sort of representation. Obviously using a predefined list limits massively the possible approaches we can provide, but by using elements less specific than whole sentences (ie images or keywords) we can provide greater flexibility.

     - Mini-game: Any mini-game (eg Theme Park's negotiation game detailed previously) is necessarily going to be quite an abstraction to the degree that I'd not recommend it be the central input mechanic. As demonstrated in Theme Park, though, mini-games can make for useful tools in representing more specific elements of conversation.

     - Keywords: This really interests me. What if we allowed the player to type a word to reflect an emotion, or topic, or observation? Obviously interactive fiction has been doing this for years, and it would still require a predefined dictionary set. At the very least, though, it provides a greater sense of freedom, and can handle far more options than a traditional dialogue tree. It also allows us to hide from the player the options available to him, requiring a greater depth of consideration than simply browsing a list.

Now let's consider how to fit and test the conversational traits we've identified in the structures available.

Perception
- Simplified implementation: The LA Noire system. Assume animation and voice performance is sufficiently detailed for the player to employ his ability of perception entirely naturally. Requires our input method to allow him to leverage that perception appropriately. This works fine in LA Noire where what is perceived is as simple as telling the truth or lying, and the input method follows the same options, but does it scale to more complex observations? Without providing a large set of red herrings it seems like it would struggle in any context where what the player was perceiving was more specific than truth/lie, because if we give him the option to, say, accuse the merchant of having ulterior motives, he's learnt that it's important from us rather than his own observation of the underlying meaning of the dialogue.

- Keyword implementation: Pre-define certain words in the dialogue and allow the player to either click on them or type them in, which will then lead the conversation in that direction. This wouldn't be used for selecting a topic of conversation necessarily; more so it would allow the player to identify and leverage subtext. Stupid example: "My wife has gone missing, she was wearing her best jewellery, please find her." Player inputs "jewellery motive" and opens up a quest branch where we come to understand the speaker is more concerned about the gold wedding ring than the wife. If this was a trad dialogue tree it'd be an obvious dialogue option; using keywords it becomes a question of the player's insight. Effectively you're asking the player to demonstrate his understanding of ther subtext - what is this person really talking about?

Knowledge: In trad dialogue trees this is usually represented by a variable: if the player pursued dialogue option X previously then provide new dialogue option Y. Perhaps the more challenging approach is to provide the player a bank of collected information: facts or topics he's discovered previously which must be selected specifically at key points. It's still pre-authored, and will be indescribably annoying when ti doesn't work (yes you, LA Noire) but again it does put more emphasis on the player's knowledge, rather than his character's.

Eloquence / Timing: It's hard to allow the player the express eloquence - the natural skills we employ every day (to varying degrees of success) are too complex and numerous to really model (though one could argue the sum of a successful dialogue system would itself be representative of eloquence). At any rate, we certainly don't want to model it as a statistic (+5 charisma) because that's unnatural and unsatisfying. This seems, to me, like a great place to use a mini-game. We allow the player to select his topic or tone, but we apply a modifier based on a mini-game, which will affect the tone, relationship or information presented in the response. What this catches, for me, is that basic buzz of successfully pulling off the perfect one liner; or, more interestingly, knowing exactly what you need to say and entirely failing to communicate it.

Group Formation: This is the only trait which makes sense to model as a straight set of statistics. Social standing is something that's affected by conversations and actions previously undertaken, and which can only be affected by the same in the future. It's commonly modelled very simplistically in RPGs - eg if character X likes you more than 50% then dialogue option Y appears. It could, naturally, be extended. If you're using threats, is the character aware of previous instances where you've backed down? If you're trying to lead a conversation, are there enough people in the group who already respect you as a leader?

In 'Part 3: The System' we'll complete our overview of the traits by looking at self-control vs personal expression, and finally tie everything together into something vaguely resembling a coherent system. Maybe. Eyes on the prize this time next week.

Project Announcement: Adidas miCoach

2011-06-07T13:41:00.000+01:00

So I did a bit of writing as part of a Sidelines team for this upcoming THQ sports training thingamy. It was basically another barks script - turning out versions of a core script, tailored to specific characters. In this case, the game has a bunch of high profile athletes and sports personalities to guide the player through the exercises, and I was writing for a rather cool but as yet unannounced female British athlete.

And that's about all there is to say about that!

If lifting weights in front of your PS3, or jogging while someone yells in your ear is your sort of bag you can read more about the announcement at gamerfitnation.com.

Designing a Dialogue System From Scratch Part 1: What is Dialogue?

2011-06-03T17:45:00.001+01:00

I did a couple of sessions at this year's GameCamp: a discussion on designing dialogue systems and a debate on the morality of wargames. For those that aren't in the know, GameCamp is an unconference - anybody that turns up can ad lib a session, with anywhere from 3 to 30 people rocking up to take part in each.

The morals thing was a bit slapdash - I realised two things very quickly. 1) It's not really a discussion about games so much as it is about individual people's moral codes and 2) most people aren't kitted out to have an argument about moral theory, and those that are sit at the back looking grumpy.

The dialogue session, though, was much more favourably received, albeit with the caveat I should have employed my usual presumptuousness and run it over two blocks so we could get a bit more stuck in. Here's what we were mumbling about, tarted up rather a lot with my own thinking post-event.

My pitch was that dialogue trees are one of the oldest mechanics in games and that they do a terrible job of actually emulating real conversation and the skill, personality and emotion that goes into it. Instead of thinking inside the box, what happens if we analyse what makes up a real conversation and then develop a system that models these features? Can we abstract and interact with dialogue in the same way we do gunfights or murder investigations?

So what was our dialogue system hoping to achieve? The whole point of thinking about a new way in which to interact with dialogue is to find a system that:

- Is sufficiently realistic: It doesn't need to be simulation (obviously that's impossible for the foreseeable), but it does need to be a plausible abstraction. An in-game firefight doesn't require physical fitness, combat training or the know-how to strip a Beretta; but it does test reflexes and knowledge of basic tactics like cover and flanking. If conversation in the real world were as simple as choosing an emotional response from a list and asking every question you can think of we'd all be expert manipulators.

- Is interesting & dramatic: Obviously.

- Is goal oriented & skill-based: Gameplay assumes a goal. It may not always be an explicitly stated one (discover the location of the secret lair), it might be a player assigned one (learn about a character's past or teasing someone he doesn't like).

- Allows the player to express his personality: This is the tricky one - how do we balance personal expression versus goal achievement / manipulation? In Mass Effect 2 both friendly and aggressive paths usually achieve the same goal, which removes the skill; but requiring a certain approach in order to achieve a goal sidelines personal expression.

We started off by looking at what was already out there.

Traditional Dialogue Trees (almost every RPG / point & click ever): They don't flow naturally, they provide options the player might not have considered, and don't provide options that he has. Little skill involved.

Free text input / keywords (Facade, Starship Titanic): Hard to program believably, can't represent complexity as easily as dialogue trees, but do give a greater sense of freedom and hide the inner workings more effectively.

Mini games (Theme park's trade union negotiation, Republic): Provide a more skill based interaction, but are overly abstracted

LA Noire's doubt/lie system: Completely removes active roleplay and conversation topic control to focus soley on testing perception and contextual knowledge. Big on player skill, low on player ownership.

Interesting tweaks on dialogue trees:

   - Mass Effect's dialogue ball: Overly simplifies options to good, neutral, bad and more information. Morality system contradicts the player's and encourages them to 'game' the system, ie non-roleplay. But it does provide a cinematic flow.

     - KOTOR II's [Lie] option: Allows the player to express his personality without reducing his ability to manipulate characters (ie the game knows the difference between a player who says nice things because he's nice and a player who says nice things because he wants something).

   - Fahrenheit's system: The timelimit encourages instinctual responses and keeps dialogue flowing naturally; chosing a thematic word instead of an entire sentence provides greater sense of player ownership; impossible to explore every thread or 'game' the system.

     - Alpha Protocol's system: Focuses on character roleplay and character manipulation. Player has a goal which can be achieved by understanding the NPC's personality and manipulating it with appropriate tonal choices; but equally may choose to piss off characters he doesn't like.

Next we considered what makes up real dialogue. We decided there are two types of conversations we're familiar with, though naturally they are often combined.

Dramatic: Goal oriented. At least one person is seeking either information or support through persuasion, at the expense of varying degrees of personal expression (ie how manipulative is that person, and how much can they control their natural personality?) For instance, I'm going for a job interview; my goal is to persuade the interviewer that I'm a good candidate; in order to do so I may have to conceal or exaggerate certain facts, as well as adopt a more formal voice and refrain from telling knob gags.

Social: No goal beyond entertainment / expression of care. Often unfocused. I'm allowed to tell knob gags as an expression of my personality and as a kind lure or scarecrow for people who I'm likely to get on with or dislike respectively.

Traditionally the traits that define the calibre of a conversationalist are either represented in games by stats (intelligence, charisma etc), or not at all (dialogue trees where NPC reactions are pre-programmed). But what are these traits in detail?

Perception: Picking up on underlying meaning and emotion through tone, body language and word choice.
Knowledge: Useful information on the topic in hand or the other person that can be leveraged.
Eloquence / Timing: Understanding the other person isn't enough to achieve a goal; the speaker also has to have the charisma to successfully deliver a line that leverages that understanding appropriately.
Self-control: How much is a person willing / able to adapt their personality in order to achieve their goals?
Group Formation: What is the person's social standing with the other speaker/s?

In 'Part 2: Structure' we'll consider the fundamentals of how we might present, progress and input dialogue, and begin thinking about how to model and test the traits we've just identified.

Workshop: Interactive Narrative for Screenwriters @ Birkbeck College

2011-06-02T00:26:00.001+01:00

This Saturday I've been asked to hold a day's workshop for screenwriting students on writing for games. It's being held at Birkbeck College, London, from 10am - 4pm, tickets open to the public, and the official blurb goes something like this:

"In this one-day workshop, you will evaluate existing games from a scriptwriting point of view and learn how new games are developed. You will also gain insight into the games industry and the potential for freelance or retained work within it. You will do practical scriptwriting exercises both individually and in groups, and will receive tutor feedback on these."

Strangely the one thing it doesn't mention is who's running it which (regardless of whether you think I'm an experienced narrative designer, or a small chap with a big mouth) seems like the single most important detail. Anyway, it's not super cheap at £70 (£40 concessions), but apparently not as expensive as they come at Birkbeck either. Assuming the university doesn't change its tune on profit sharing it's probably the first and last year I'll be running it (UK universities are run like businesses, but still cling to the guidelines when it comes to actually paying people), but that's not to say if it's a success I might not take the format elsewhere.

That format's as follows:

•10am – Kick off

•10:20am – How are games different?

•10:50am – Write something: be innovative

•11:15am – Game script examples

•11:35am – Break

•11:45am – Approaches to story

•12:15pm – Lunch

•1pm – Write something: HTML dialogue trees

•1:45pm – Learning from indie games

•2.15pm – Write something: more HTML dialogue trees

•2:30pm – Break

•2:40pm - How to get a job

•3pm - Show off something: HTML dialogue trees

•3:40pm – Questions

4pm – Pub

I feel a touch uncomfortable encouraging people to take up these things, just like I sometimes feel uncomfortable teaching at Southbank. The hard truth is that for 80% of takers the most valuable thing to do would probably be to tell them to give up now rather than sowing false hope, and for the other 20% there's a long uphill struggle that I can only nudge them towards. The flip side of the coin is that anyone should have the right to pay for anything, including education, and who am I to decide who can't?

So. There's your disclaimer, and here's your ticket link. Hooray!

Project Announcement: Evil Dead App

2011-05-23T01:53:00.001+01:00

Today I've had the go ahead from the marketing machine to unveil my latest project, Evil Dead for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch. If you know anything about my interests as a writer (horror, dark humor, zombies) you'll be able to guess my joy at being let loose with the franchise. I even got to say yes to the project while we-are-not-worthy-ing the Army of Darkness poster on my studio wall. The developer, Trigger - which specialises in promotional apps and website games - has a somewhat diabolical standard contract clause which denies freelancers the right to reference their involvement with a project (presumably due to the big name licences they're working with), let alone discuss it, so I'm lucky to have been granted a reprieve.

As ever, the question for fans is going to be whether or not this is a faithful tribute or a cheap cash-in, and the best way to answer that is to check out this trailer comparison. Trigger have remade the original theatrical trailer almost shot for shot in the game engine, and it's an impressive labour of love that convinced me this was something worth getting involved with. There's also some coverage at Kotaku.

The first thing you'll notice are the cutesie Mii-style graphics. You'll love them or hate them. I think they're ludicrous, and therefore thoroughly Evil Dead.

The game itself is a by-the-numbers 3D third-person hack-and-slash. It'd be hard to say it's stretching any gameplay boundaries, so it's an experience that'll live or die on its polish. Fingers crossed for the final version.

What I can comment on more conclusively is the passion that Trigger and I have for the source material, and in communicating it via the writing. That trailer really says it all. It's been commissioned by Ghost House, Sam Raimi's studio, and this is very much an Evil Dead game, rather than a Dead by Dawn or Army of Darkness concern; Trigger knows the difference. It's darker, more focused on Ash trying to hold things together despite his complete lack of heroic qualities. Not to say that this is literary fiction, but we've not gone the cheap route of just throwing in boomstick references every five seconds. Crafty dig at the competition there. Shame on me.

The first third of the game retells the original film's plot. It's a very faithful adaptation where I've tried to deliver the same sense of Evil-Dead-in-ten-minutes-flat that's presented as a catch up for new viewers at the start of each sequel. The rest of the game is new plotting developed at Trigger following an alternate timeline that branches off after the first film.

Look out for Evil Dead in the App Store come June, pending the usual Apple review shenanigans.

Get Your Writing Resources and Script Samples here!

2011-05-17T12:15:00.001+01:00

Check out the new Narrative Design Resource

Today means I've been operating this blog for over a year. It took me a long time to get to the point where I felt like I might have something to say worth blogging, and it's something I continue to question. To all of my regular commenters, my lurkers (do say hello), and everyone who's expressed an interest in person - thanks for reminding me that sometimes I do. Sometimes.

Right, that's enough suck-up, self-congratulatory stuff for one year. Let's look at what we need to work on.

Thanks to a friendly link from RPS a year ago things took off quickly at Plot is Gameplay's Bitch. So quickly, in fact, that it took about six months for my unique visitors to reach that peak again. We're now trolling steadily along at around 3,000 - 4,000 uniques a month, except each time RPS links over here and we shoot up to about 10,000 and crash the server. Thanks guys :-)

I really want to drive the site into being a primary resource for interactive narrative theory and discussion. With that in mind I'm out collecting interviews and guest posts to boost the content - if you're someone you think I'd like and you're keen, do get in touch - and looking into ways to make the core theory content more immediately accessible.

The interim result is the new Narrative Design Resource. It's full of script samples, development documentation, advice and useful links. Do let me know your thoughts.

To close us off, here are a few of my early favourites that you might have missed.

http://tom-jubert.blogspot.com/2010/05/writing-for-indie-games-or-how-to.html
http://tom-jubert.blogspot.com/2010/06/fantastic-gonzo-games-fringe-piece.html
http://tom-jubert.blogspot.com/2010/06/spelunky-review-sort-of.html
http://tom-jubert.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-games-my-games-what-i-did-on-which.html
http://tom-jubert.blogspot.com/2010/12/stories-in-unlikely-places-no2-tribes.html

Designing a Dialogue System From Scratch @ GameCamp

2011-05-13T21:31:00.000+01:00

I'll be at GameCamp tomorrow. If you're going, give me a shout via email or twitter and come say hello! If you've not got tickets but are in the area pop along to the most important bit: 4pm at the Southbank Students' Union.

This is my first year at the event, but I've heard fantastic things. It's also the first year it's been run at my uni, so I'll be feeling right at home.

I imagine I'll be holding a session at some stage. At the moment I'm considering:

Designing a Dialogue System From Scratch - A sort of design by committee (*groan*) session addressing the diabolical fact that dialogue interaction (mostly in the form of the dialogue tree) is one of gaming's oldest mechanics, and in much need of a refit. What happens if instead of building on existing tropes we analyse what qualities make up real world dialogue and then develop a system from scratch to model those features?

Hope to see you there.

Vapourware? You Decide.

2011-05-11T14:02:00.000+01:00

I'm taking a risk on this one. Some time ago, I was contacted by a company and entered into discussion on a project. From the go I thought it was a bit too good to be true, but that's for you to decide. This blog is all about a candid insight into development and my career, and the world's full of fun people like those in this story, so I want to share it.

I'm taking two big risks here. First, I'm going to be publishing the representative (let's call him Jim) of the company in question's correspondance in part. He may not like that. More importantly, it's arguably unprofessional to do so.

Let me make it clear now that I do not break NDAs. The details shared here are either unrelated to game content or they are very broad descriptions that the developer was happy to provide outside of NDA. I consider my clients' privacy paramount, and though this project didn't get as far as that, I will not be naming any names.

So, first off, Jim's original email. The email contained no restrictions regarding reproduction.

My name is [Jim]; I am the director of [the company]. My team and I have been in production of a demo for a next generation game, unique in style, gameplay and in story. It is not an RPG nor an MMO but something completely different. It has gained great interest inside the industry and has many investors, publishers and other developers very interested. We have sponsorship agreements with [some big companies]. [Some other big companies] are among the many game publishers which have expressed their interest in this project. We have varied talent working on the project, artists from [some very big movie studios].

Immediate alarm bells, right? It's not an RPG nor an MMO? Sounds like it's going to be an MMORPG that never happens. The list of interesated parties is far, far, far too good to be true.

[A guy famous for something really quite dubious] acts as business adviser and takes great interest in the project, helping put together a structured business plan. We have had a $53,000+ sponsorship from [a tools company] this software has greatly increased the productivity of the project.
The demo only has three months left in development. For these last three months we are looking to recruit an extra 20-30 developers for the development team, so we can show off the full potential of this remarkable game.

My suspicion is that the sponsorship may have been in the form of free software, but that's just conjecture.

I'm approaching you, requesting, that you join us for the last three months as a story writer. I have seen your site and believe you are talented. After signing NDA agreements further details on the project can be explained to you. If you do join us, and all goes well, when we move in-house you will be offered a full-time position working with [the company]on the actual game development of 180-220 people (Flights and relocation can be discussed, etc). If you believe it would be too difficult to relocate, but are still willing to help out for these last three months you'll be given a letter of recommendation and compensation for the work you have produced. Also upon joining the demo development team you will be given a share in the company (initially small, but will grow as the company develops).

So, it's free work. It turned out later the share in the company is a legal thing to make the contract more binding.

After this final three months of development I have arranged to visit 13 different game publishers and investors to pitch the demo we have created. Half the games out there started off the same way we have, without you and the other people developing on the demo it would not be possible, I ask only three months (part time) to help out on this revolutionary project. Thank you.

Kind Regards,

[Jim]

A big part of me at this stage wanted (and still wants) to believe him. While it's not true half the commercial games out there start off like this, it is true some brilliant ones have done, and it's people like Jim with a dream and some balls that makes that happen.

I got in touch and we had some lengthy conversations on Skype. He was smooth talker, he really sounded like he knew his stuff: contracts, patents, publishing contacts, a big team... and for a moment he had me going. I will happily work for free on a passionate indie project if it's something really exciting that I can invest in.

Then we got past the NDA and he started describing the game. I wish I could share some of the details, but I'm trying to keep this all legal. Suffice it to say, the first sentence was along the lines of, "Okay, so if you want to call it an MMO or an RPG, you can," and any pushing on my part for solid details rearding mechanics resulted in long winded descriptions of character classes and special abilities.

Then there was the contract. I understand the need for a contract even on amateur stuff because it saves problems when you do go commercial and someone starts claiming they own half your game. This one was different. Jim openly admitted he'd spent most of the budget so far on legal expenses, and it showed. Despite having signed an NDA I was asked to sign the contract before I could take a look an any in-game assets or see detailed design documentation regarding the top secret central mechanic that would prove this game was something new and exciting.

That was the end of the line for me, but not for the story.

The sort of big names he was throwing around as interested publishers, and the sort of people he was approaching to work on the project, it was inevitable someone somwhere would know someone at one of the publishers. That was me. I checked in with someone at what is probably one of the most well known publishers in the industry - a publisher with whom Jim had been discussing financing. They'd never heard of him. Maybe he got lost in the post somewhere.

Last I heard, Jim's three month deadline expired some time ago, and he'd begun approaching universities for volunteer developers.

More than anything, I love Jim's gaul. People with a vision, the ability to bring a team together and to find inventive routes to publishing are what creative industries need. The reason I pursued the project at all was because I'm in love with the idea of this all being genuine and being proved wrong a year from now when Jim's the next big thing and I've soiled my lifetime employment opportunities with a huge new developer.

What these project really need, though, is the ability to develop a realistic and successful project off the back of all that - otherwise you end up here. What do you think?

Driver: San Francisco Previews Abound

2011-05-06T18:46:00.000+01:00

With Driver: San Francisco out later this year the first batch of hands on previews has come in. Here's one. Here's another.

I worked on Driver as part of a writing team, and it's great there are now some decent details out to talk about. In particular, I can actually explain what I did. Or, well, I can let Meer do it for me. From RPS:

[Tanner] somehow finds himself able to transfer his consciousness into the body of any other driver in the city. [This] is doubly entertaining when your car of choice has a passenger. One minute they’re being driven around by some boring old fart, next minute their companion apparently turns into a suicidal gobshite with zero respect for health, safety or authority. Like Quantum Leap, your host doesn’t physically change, but Tanner’s gung-ho, wisecracking, mortality-ignoring persona is entirely in charge.

Who knows just how much comedy can be wrung from what’s always going to be essentially the same gag, but Reflections certainly seemed to be experimenting with a vein of humour previously absent, rather than hanging proceedings around gritty grime. One mission (for there are set tasks as well as a glut of optional ones and simply dicking around) sees Tanner brain-steal some rich bugger test-driving a Ford GT, with the salesman offering snake oil from the passenger seat. His patter slows down as the supercar is hurled around the roads at deadly speeds, and prissy screeching about losing his bonus begins. Tanner giggles to himself, a police officer entirely unconcerned about ruining a man’s career or, indeed, causing terrible injuries to civilians and untold property damage.

That was me - along with some other chaps from Sidelines - churning out weeks' worth of in-car dialogue and character designs, each with their own mini-arch as the player pushes that particular passenger to the edge. As Tanner's coma dream gets deeper and darker the dialogues push into black comedy, and I get to turn out everything from suicidal cult leaders who are worried they're going to pop it before the ritual, to dispirited TV repairmen who decide to go postal.

It was a rush job (shame, given the delays), and after 30 characters (each with 20 triggers, each with 6 variations; you're basically rewriting the same 20 lines hundreds of times over) you start to get a bit stretched. However the tone is a perfect match for me, and it was a fun departure from usual AAA fare. I've not seen enough of the project to comment authoritatively, but I'm quietly hopeful the game, and its writing, will be well received.

ir/rational Upgrade: Call For Artists

2011-04-25T10:52:00.000+01:00

Last year I released my indie-sentence-logic-philosophical-dark-comic-text-adventure, ir/rational. It was picked up by some nice people and saw some reasonable downloads.

I'm currently in the process of completing a second personal development, as well as converting ir/rational to flash and giving it a lick of paint. One of my goals on the original game was to include some kind of visual reference, be it graphic novel style scenes, dynamic backgrounds, or just some simple sketches between levels to add flavour. It's something I'd like to add to the new version.

If anyone would like to volunteer to turn out between 3-10 images I'd to love to hear from you - you'll have full control over style and workload. The game has always been not for profit, but this particular project (unlike many indies) does at least give you the opportunity to play through the full game in advance of signing on, and the guarentee it's actually going to get released in the next month or so.

If you're interested, mails to the usual place.

Thanks a lot.

Cargo: A Quest For Gravity is Out Now!

2011-04-22T10:34:00.002+01:00

In typically unceremonious (not to mention entirely unmarketed) fashion, Ice Pick Lodge have finally released their latest title, Cargo: A Quest For Gravity. It's £15 on Steam. I provided Ice Pick a treatment on elements of their script, and you can read more about that elsewhere in the blog. For now, though, I recommend you go buy Cargo - these guys deserve all the support they can get (plus I might get paid).

GLaDOS is Here

2011-04-19T11:16:00.002+01:00

***UPDATE***
My impressions of Portal 2 so far (no spoilers).

The first five minutes are very promising indeed. The 'art appreciation' and the other interactions you're asked to perform are inventive and provide context for the story - even if some of them are a touch predictable.

The rest of the game is... less of a jump forward in narrative than I was hoping. Gameplay? Sure: there's more of it, it's more complicated, tick that box. But the original Portal held some of the sharpest, funniest, darkest writing we've seen in any game... well, ever, and I wanted that format to be built on.

The reality is that this game (up to where I am, what I'd guess is at least 2/3 though) uses that exact same structure: enter a test chamber, listen to your handler (in the first game, GlaDOS, here a number of characters), complete test, listen to handler, head to next test. In short, the Portal series already had strong character nailed down - I wanted to see that level of intelligence applied to a plot.

Sure, there's more going on here, but not a whole lot. You have two overarching objectives throughout the game, and they're basically the same one - the rest of the time it's finding excuses to put you in test chambers. You learn a lot about the facility, but nothing really surprising or meaty. The environmental clues that made up the bulk of the plotting in the first game return, but they worked better in the more minimalist original whose three hour playtime made the slightest sign of life or chance for escape seem big and important.

I wanted Portal 2 to affect me in ways beyond laughing. I wanted to be told a story, or to be taught a lesson, or to feel the drama. The heavy emphasis on comedy, and the fact characters are almost always talking about things entirely unrelated to the plot relegates their role to flavour rather than content.

Now, I've not finished yet. And I'm not saying this is not a GREAT game. It is. It remains superbly written, polished, intelligent, and bigger. But for me, Valve are refusing to push the bar in the one area I really want to see them try.

Why Game Endings Suck

2011-04-18T17:40:00.000+01:00

An oldy but a goody. The reasons game endings suck (for the most part, naturally) has been documented before, but I wanted to think about it from a specifically narrative perspective.

So. Game endings suck because they're often the last thing developed, there's no budget left, everyone's exhausted and most players never see them anyway. It strikes me that there are two main things wrong with that picture: why do most players never see the end, and why is no one talking about story?

First off, I'm a big proponent of shorter games. Reviews spend a lot of time stressing how much value you're getting, and I can understand that, but by reducing the equation to "10 hours' playtime = £30" we're in danger of promoting bad design. It's been written about before, but frankly I would take 3 hours of Portal for £50 before I'd pay a tenner for 100+ hours of RPG grind; and I'd take 20 hours of Mass Effect 2 over 40 hours of Dragon Age.

Take a look at Uncharted 2 (I know, not a PC game?!). It's got some of the highest production values I've ever seen in a game, yet it still feels the need to pad out its playtime with cardboard cutout baddies with ever increasing hit points. The result is a denouement that lacks the spectacle, script and fun of the rest of the game - for the sake of an extra hour or two of guff. It's a vicious circle: players demand more mid-game content, that content gets diluted, fewer people bother getting to the end, and so more attention gets paid to the mid-game.

But apart from cutting all the filler, how do we succeed in delivering a satisfying conclusion in a medium where most of our audience never gets to the end?

- Don't have an ending. Some of the strongest narrative experiences are generated dynamically in games like SimCity or The Sims.
- Have lots of endings. Games like Weird Worlds or Atom Zombie Smasher encourage short, one hour game sessions, yet manage to maintain an unfolding sense of drama as multiple playthroughs are completed.
- Force the ending. Short of letting go of the controller, you pretty much cannot play Heavy Rain for more than seven or eight hours with seeing the conclusion.

Ultimately, though, I think there's a key problem with the way we're looking at the ending: we're looking at it from a gameplay perspective, not a narrative one.

What meaning does an 'ending' have within the concept of gameplay? It's not an absolute thing - most games encourage further play after they've officially ended in the form of new challenges, multiplayer, or plain pissing about. Perhaps it ought to be looked at as a question of scale, of increasing spectacle; but then games always increase in scale and spectacle as a matter of course - they seem to be able to up the ante throughout the experience, but so often fall flat when that spectacle is asked not to continue rising, but to reach a peak. It's that peak that late development often struggles to surmount.

But that peak's also responsible for the embarrassing-we-still-have-to-talk-about-it end of game boss. It genuinely numbs my brain that so many intelligent and well made games are still content to reduce the conclusions of their dramatic stories to pumping a big blue guy full of bullets. But when you look at a conclusion in a gameplay context, what choice do you have? You can't just throw more baddies at the player, but you can't throw no baddies at the player, so you need to deliver something different. Like, I don't know, a big orange guy with a glowing bald spot.

If we take another look at this from a narrative perspective, though, perhaps we need to ask "Why have a gameplay-related close at all?" I hark on about tying gameplay and story together, but if doing so in this case means taking all those fantastic, polished mechanics that worked throughout the game and throwing them out for big blue balls with his 1,000HP over there, what's the point?

An ending is a story concern. I think that if we as developers learnt to trust the gameplay and the narrative to do their respective jobs then delivering more of the same in the case of the former could be rendered satisfying by applying the time and budget to ensuring the latter imbues that gameplay with conclusive meaning. Portal's final boss - from a puzzle gameplay perspective - was rubbish. But the story lifted it to a satisfying conclusion. The endings to the first two Penumbra games were the elements I was most proud of, but they used the gameplay in only cursory ways.

One of my favourite tips when I was learning to write was "Start at the start, and keep writing until you're done." It sounds bloody stupid, but what it means is that you don't need to worry about artificially constructing lead ins and outs to your story. If you just worry about writing it then those things will take care of themselves.

Is Art a Modern Religion?

2011-04-13T14:59:00.001+01:00

This is another one of those 'WTF does that have to do with games?' posts. It's about questioning the value of art. You can find more philosophising here.

I'm due to go back to school. Starting September I'm aiming to enrol on the Philosophy MA at King's College, London. Somewhere at the back of my mind a doctorate is calling. For now, though, I'm very happy writing games and this course will just be a part-time thing to keep my brain alive. With that in mind, I'm trying to get back into gear by turning out some essays. This is one. Some notes before we start:

- I have a BA in philosophy, but I've never studied any aesthetics. I may be saying things that are painfully obvious, or got debunked centuries ago.

- If you're already au fait with objective and subjective values, and with art being the latter, you can safely skip to 'What is art?'

- This essay assumes the reader accepts religion as false. Some of the arguments are based on this belief.

- There's a too long, didn't read at the end.

On with the show!

Is Art a Modern Religion?

Art bares remarkably many of the hallmarks of a religion. Is its value something we've been conditioned to accept unquestioningly?

Defining the word 'art'

Clearly the word itself, 'art', is one whose definition has never ceased to be turbulent. For the purposes of this discussion I'll use it to refer to any thing, manmade or otherwise, which can be considered valuable beyond any practical purpose. This would cover - as I see it - anything that's ever been considered 'art', including music, photography, video games; a car chassis, a woodland clearing, or a building.

There's usually a further conversation to be had over which of these emotive things carry artistic value (often the painting or the opera), and which are 'merely' aesthetically valuable (eg blue wallpaper or a shiny watch strap). This is not a distinction I'm concerned with right now. For now when I refer to art, I refer most specifically to that pursuit a great many great people have dedicated their lives to creating, promoting, and assessing: the creation of art for art's sake.

Already, I think, we've hit a number of telling notes. We know that art is something which people - often unquestioningly, fanatically and otherwise to their own detriment - consider to be of utmost importance in their lives. Art is something we are all intimately aware of, but struggle to pin down. It is something we fight over (albeit in a far more subdued way than religion). Art is something on which we attempt to proliferate our own perspective at the expense of opposing movements. It is something which pervades every element of our society, be it the Dali design on Chupa Chups lollies or the carefully choreographed cutlery on a fine dining table.

Art is perceived as a 'real' value

Obviously I'm not seeking to question the existence of the things which we call art, in just the same way I would not seek to claim it impossible that someone called Jesus said some persuasive things at some point. Clearly paintings and books exist. My concern is the perceived value behind those things - namely, is there any true value to them, or like god is that value an invention of the psychethat makes the world a bit more bearable?

Art is something the most of us would take for granted as being in some intrinsic and timeless way fundamental to human existence. Specific examples aside, its value as a whole is something whose reality tends not be open to question. Crucially, therefore, artistic value is something with the ability to propel us through life in directions entirely unsupported by any rational facts.

The background on debunking beliefs

I'd like to use morality as an analogy here. Over the millennia of human development, we have constantly broken down the dogma around our false beliefs. We began with god. Go back just 300 years and the question of whether belief in god was rational - ie was supported by fact rather than hyperbole, superstition and psychological need - wasn't just a question that people weren't supposed to ask; it was a question 99.9% of people didn't even think to ask. Religion wasn't seen as a belief in the same way it is today; it wasn't seen as something a person must go out of their way to find and uphold. It was just a part of the background. It was an assumption so implicitly accepted - by people, but also by the structure of every element of society - as to be invisible.

Throughout the latter half of the 20^th century religious belief moved from invisible, to questionable, to questionable without fear of the noose, to answered, and finally to debunked (in most intelligent, educated circles).

Morality - which I define as the belief in an authoritative rule or system of rules governing how a person 'ought' behave - is moving through a similar cycle, albeit a compressed and ongoing one. With the elimination of god, the question of what underpins the authority of objective moral values became one that could legitimately be raised. Over the past 200 years it's one which - I would argue - has been answered, but one which remains unaccepted. Morality is no less a religion than Christianity, and its questioning in public remains an activity liable to ostracise whoever dares do so. It is, in short, on the difficult cusp between being an invisible assumption (often the subconscious premise that the greater good is of primary, a priori importance), and a more conscious belief that it's possible to discuss and even doubt.

The crucial analogy, here, is that clearly there are real, objective actions which we call moral; just as there are real, objective works which we call art. What is open to question is whether the value of these works - and of those actions - is as real and objective as they are; or whether the value is an invention of the human mind, and therefore in need of a stronger internal understanding in order to justify the belief.

Art as a subjective, rather than objective value

Except, it's not. Unlike morality or religion, there are few proponents of the belief that art is somehow underpinned by some unknowable and supernatural force. Despite the omnipresence of objectively presented review scores and critiques (which could at most be said to objectively represent the subjective values of their stakeholders), art is already accepted as having subjective value - that is value which can justifiably differ from person to person. Murder is supposed to be murder, regardless of who is doing it; a miracle doesn't stop being a miracle because it was observed by an atheist. The entire structure of the arguments against those beliefs revolves around demonstrating that this objective value is an assumption. Art, though, enjoys a far more dangerous assumption: that its value is not only subjective, but beneficially so.

"That's just your interpretation," or "This really meant the following for me personally," are certainly more accurate reactions to art than, "This is good art, this is bad," but they also grant art a uniquely powerful claim to the speaker: the claim that their view is indubitable; not beholden to logic. Now, far be it that 'sounding a bit like religion' be enough evidence to damn anything as such, but it has to be said: as soon as we start claiming something is valuable, yet reserve its value as a uniquely personal, non-objective and unquestionable entity, religion is certainly the field we begin to wander into.

What is art?

Sadly to ask, "What is art?" or "Why is art valuable?" is often to see the sort of backlash you can only imagine similar questions of morality and god were receiving so many years ago. To question the value of a great work out loud is so terribly gauche - you're being too analytical, or not analytical enough, or thinking about it in the wrong way, or plain not getting it. This is precisely what makes it dangerous.

We even produce dystopian works of art which present worlds where art is banned as if this were the ultimate moral sin; we view these worlds in much the same way the religious societies of the eighteenth century would have viewed our own.

But it's time to clear some things up. This essay is not seeking to claim there can be no value in art. By definition subjective value (value which exists entirely in the mind of the human subject) is something which defies an all-encompassing, subject-independent classification. If you simply like the look of a silver Porsche or a basket of fruit there's no reasonable way to disagree with you. Certainly the simple fact that the value two different perceive in a work can be outright contradictory is not proof that their values are false. If my preference for a particular character or art style results in a unique interpretation, or if my experience in life results in a work's familiar message feeling fresh and I therefore find it to be thoroughly captivating, there is no sense in which another person's predisposition can be considered in some way superior to mine. What is considered profound cannot be so for everyone.

The role of reason is artistic value

Crucially, though, we tend to demand that appreciation of art (works created specifically to be valued on a meaningful level) differ intellectually from appreciation of more passively emotive things (the wallpaper, the woodland clearing, the bowl of fruit). Unless we wish to relegate the value of art to that of unthinking emotion, that value will still have to be rationally justified. Unless we wish to propose that the value perceived in the most complex of impressionist art is equal to that of the banker admiring his nice silver Porsche, we must accept that reasoned thought is required, and that the reality of artistic value therefore remains open to reasoned doubt. That value might be some philosophical or even spiritual lesson, eg Kafka's emphasis on the alienation of the modern bureaucratic society. It might be the effective, immediate and emotive communication of a way of life we have no means of accessing for ourselves, eg Anne Frank's wartime tale of hope and persecution. It might simply be a work's ability to conjure a more complex emotion than is commonly experienced. But all of these things are reasoned values. They are open to interpretation, but they are not impervious to intelligent questioning.

Art's power over us

Perhaps it is only that art can have so many possible interpretations that has rendered it such a viable religion. Just as religions and moralities underpin their sets of rules with promise of rewards that are very difficult to refute - eg the afterlife - art grants its followers rewards equally intangible: 'impact', 'culture', 'vision'. And if you don't feel like you've received those rewards, if Picasso leaves you cold, then don't worry: it probably affected you in some other way; or its simple apprehension has improved you as a person; or it's just not for you; or maybe you plain didn't get it.

Regardless of whether there was or was not some measure of objective truth somewhere along the line, countless religions and social constructs have demonstrated just one thing over the centuries: that it's terrifyingly easy to convince people something is real and important provided they're convinced everyone else agrees and there's nothing immediately graspable and concrete showing themless of whether there was or was not some measure of objective truth somewhere along the line, countless religions and social constructs have demonstrated just one thing over the centuries: that it's terrifyingly easy to convince people something is real and important provided they're convinced everyone else agrees and there's nothing immediately graspable and concrete showing them otherwise.

My point (finally)

Ultimately, I suppose that this is as much a sociological warning light as it is philosophical essay; a niggling concern for no one as much as myself. I'm not for a second proposing that art cannot have profound effects on us, or that the world would be better off without it (though I am proposing we at least consider as much). I am not questioning on a rational level the theoretical reality of the value we place in art (since art presupposes that that value is subjective, and therefore not underpinned by anything in the 'real world' beyond our own minds). I cherish visiting an art gallery or reading literary fiction (though in the case of the former I wonder how much of it is about perceiving true value, and how much is about showing a pretty girl a cool place). I have been moved by art, and I have been intellectually affected by art, but by a significant margin I have more often than not simply been entertained.

So when I'm done with this essay will I do my usual thing? Will I take my ideas and convert them into fiction? Perhaps sacrifice the clarity of the message I want to convey in favour of convincing a few more people of its value through hyperbole and plot?

Perhaps not.

tl;dr

Clearly to sit here and say, "All this pretentious art is a load of bullshit designed to make clever people feel cleverer," is not new, nor clever. But then it's equally clear that if art gives smart (or would-be smart) people a purpose in life that they need not question or justify, then that's not a whole hell of a lot different to Nietzsche's observation that religion provides vulnerable people the very same.

My point is not that I believe art is necessarily screwed, in the same way that I don't believe living by Christian standards will necessarily ruin your life. My question, really, is this: "Has art replaced religion as the unquestionable value in our society, obscuring any true value we might seek; and is it possible that in assuming that value as absolute we sometimes make decisions based on that assumption that may ultimately prove to be to our detriment?"

I suspect that I quite frequently have.

How to be a Good Freelancer

2011-04-04T13:21:00.001+01:00

This post originally went up at GAMESbrief to promote their new freelancer database.

Sorry for the header.

In promotion of his new freelancer database, Nicholas Lovell asked me to share what I know about freelancing for anyone who's maybe looking to make the shift. I've been contracting as a games writer for almost five years, and relying on it as my main source of income for the latter half of that time. Over the years it's more often than not been running a good business - rather than any direct correlation between ability and job offers - that's kept me in work.

Securing Work
- Network. I'm not going to repeat all the usual advice. You know how to network. A lot of the jobs aren't sitting on bulletin boards; they're sitting in the bar waiting for you to buy them a pint and tell them about the fascinating / appalling lecture you've just seen. I'm also going to include obvious stuff here like get your name out there, maintain a professional website, blog etc.

- Research standard industry rates for your services, and be confident pitching them (ideally only once you've seen a full brief for the project). Be prepared to engage in and even encourage negotiation. In my experience many devs don't always bother; whether that's a business etiquette thing or a case of it being easier just to get quotes from a bunch of freelancers and chose the best, I don't know. Either way it's a shame, because very few of us are in this industry to make our millions: usually if someone comes to me with a project I want to work on we're able to find a rate and schedule that keeps everyone happy.

- Always meet face to face as soon as possible. There's no great psychology in observing that people form better connections when they've sat in a room together complaining about the red ring of death for half an hour while the tech department finds a new Xbox.

- Stay in touch. Develop an address book of people who might send work your way (either now or in new roles in the future, ie almost everyone). If you publish a new game, start a relevant new endeavour, or have anything valuable to say, send them a note. I wouldn't do this more than a few times a year, if that - spam is bad - but lots of people will hopefully consider you a genuinely valuable contact, even if they don't necessarily send you a fantastic job immediately.

On the job
- Under promise, over deliver. It's an old freelancer thing, but it'll save you being the dreaded British builder who always winds up charging 100% more than he quoted. Adjust your guarentees against how good you are at estimating workloads. You'll have to use judgement on when a client is looking for a lower quote, but most of the time if you can develop a reputation for delivering on time, and even early, you're golden.

- Find the balance between the client's expectations and your own expertise. What you think the audience wants and what the client thinks don't always coincide. You've been hired to do what you're told, certainly, but you've also been hired to make their game as strong as you possibly can. Learn to let go of the small battles, justify your decisions when you hold your ground, and be prepared to be overruled without losing the smile. You're all on the same team.

Finally, always keep the producer happy. Always, always deliver on time. Stay one step ahead of the needs of the developer. Stay in contact as much as possible. The company hires you because you make life easier: they get to know what they're getting, when they're getting it and how much it's going to cost. You probably cost more than an in-house equivalent would, so you're the one guy who can't get away with deadline slippage. Producers are often overworked. They have a dozen other freelancers like you to manage. If you're the one guy they never have to hassle over a deadline they're going to hire you again.

Ice Pick Lodge Snaps

2011-04-01T15:20:00.000+01:00

A while ago I documented my haphazard time over in Moscow with Ice Pick Lodge. I've since provided them a script polish, and Cargo - as far as I'm aware - is now all but ready. I know the guys must at least have gotten past the big shifts because Alex had the time to process and fire over the snaps from the trip. Here they are in all their glory, in case you don't believe me.

This is shortly after I arrived in the bar. You can smoke inside!

Nisa (Ice Pick's intern) and I in the HQ kitchen. It took about twenty minutes to convince her to pose for this.

That's an absinthe cocktail sitting on the table. I think.

Alex and I. Aren't we gruff?

I signed a man's chest. In a bar. With actual people watching.

Atom Zombie Smasher

2011-03-31T15:59:00.001+01:00

I've been playing two games recently - Crysis 2 and Atom Zombie Smasher. The former's new emphasis on cyber-conspiracy waffle and linear gameplay has left me entirely cold (Crysis-lite anyone?).

The latter is a new top-down tactical game from Blendo Games, the developer behind the excellent space opera, Flotilla. Hundreds of pixelated zombies flood a cityscape, and using an assortment of helicopters, infantry, mines and artillery you have to evacuate the civies and ideally wipe out the hordes before nightfall - battles knitting into a cursory campaign map overlay. It's a smart system that encourages all those heroic last ditch rescue attempts and frantic fighting across town, and the scale - which must see close to 1,000 pixel zombies, scientists, peds and mega zeds in play at times - is gratifying.

There's only skirmish mode available here, but it's given some life by the comic 'vignettes' delivered at random between play cycles (as pictured in the header). The story takes place in 1960s Latin America, but the whole thing exists in the Blendoverse, the same universe as Flotilla - a universe where people drink vodkahol, think they're descended from aliens, and are pillaged by space crocodiles. It's constantly familiar, yet bonkers.

One summer, a very young Tabajaras shaves the fur off one side of his cat. "Now Peachie can sleep on the hairy side when he's hot, and flip around when he's cold."

The cool thing about these vignettes is that save for the prologue and epilogue they're delivered at random. You end up filling in gaps as you go along (so that's why he's steaming out into the desert looking for his t-shirt), and the plot covers multiple characters connected in some way to an uprising and a scrabble over a national defence program, all in the midst of an incoming zombie-based catastrophe. By the time all the pieces are collected the threads have... mostly come together. They're amusing and, incidentally, entirely modable:

I made that.

So for all of Crysis's bells and whistles - and for all the times AZS comes dangerously close to being a tower defence game - it's still the latter that's done more for me.

There are problems you'll have to be prepared to look past. This very much feels like a Beta release: there are no auto setup options so you'll be doing a lot of the same routines over and over, the tutorial text never seems to go away, you have no control over your troop roster, and the balancing is all over the place (a levelled up artillery gun can win pretty much anything). The scenarios also lack visual and tactical variation - the same old buildings and street layouts rejigged for every mission. An international level pack would make this an altogether different offering.

And, yup, this has officially turned into a review.

The game seems to know it's a one-off strategy blast - the vignettes will keep coming fresh until about 5+ hours in, around the length of a long skirmish campaign. It's a shame the £6.99 price point lets it get away with this - there are lots of fun, underdeveloped strategy games on the market, but I'd have loved to see a more fleshed out vision of this.

I've Been Doing Some Writing!

2011-03-21T12:39:00.000Z

I know, hard to believe. This particular writing has been nothing to do with games - though I've been chocka on that front since Feb so watch out for details on my latest three (three?!) projects over the next couple of months.

First, as I mentioned over here, I've been writing for performance recently, turning out some monologues at various events across London. I can't say how fantastic it is to actually get in the spotlight and see the reactions on people's faces, both good and bad. The one I'm happiest with is a development of a concept I came up with way back during my undergrad days at Southampton. I perform it in character, and it's about a guy who works for a major charity forging letters from third world orphans to their western sponsors. It usually gets a mix of dark laughs and gasps, and while it's a touchy subject I stand by the moral discussion I'm attempting to have, and usually remind people that I am not the character.

You can download a short story-ised version here.

Secondly, the short piece of philosophical science fiction that I posted... wow, I was going to say a couple of months ago; turns out it was last summer... has been published as part of an anthology. It's an interesting one, because the whole thing's a borderline scam. Usually when I produce short stories (and monologues for that matter) it's as a creative release - my chance to express myself and improve my technique. Occasionally I'll fire off something I'm happy with to a couple of competitions just for the sod of it. Turns out I won one and the prize is being published in this anthology.

Now, there's another way to spin that ball: that by entering the competition I've allowed someone to profit off of my writing for free. I wasn't even provided a complementary copy. Of course, if most of the other writers were amateur there's maybe a different emphasis on that, and I'm not particularly complaining: I of course ensured that I retained the rights to the story, and if it weren't being published there it's not like it would have done much beyond fester on my hard drive. But there's undoubtedly a murky middle ground in the new found popularity of internet and self-publishing, and I think I may have waded straight into it.

10 Tips on How to Become a Professional Games Writer

2011-03-14T15:36:00.002Z

It's the number one question we get asked. We talk about it in panels, in classes, in interviews, and in the pub. Even assuming you're remarkably talented and know everything that's everything about games, you're facing long odds - but you know that already. I don't claim to be any kind of expert at 'getting in' - after all, I've only done it the once - but for what it's worth, here's the definitive guide as I see it to becoming a professional narrative designer.

1. Be a remarkably talented writer. Frankly, like me, you could get away with being competent with a bit of personal flair, provided you also have a bit of luck and know games inside out. But if you're a naff writer - if you've not written for yourself, or braved honest critique with your work - that's your first stumbling block. Being fantastic will help lots.

2. Understand games. Playing lots of shooters probably isn't enough. You've got to think about games critically as any developer would - that's what makes you a narrative designer, not just a hired hack.

3. To those ends, play lots of games, read lots of books. Think about them. Write about them.

4. Keep trying, take anything, try everything. Build an indie game, write for a mod, write reviews, email devs, work in QA, build a portfolio.

5. Network. Doesn't matter what route you come into the business through, getting jobs - particularly writing jobs - isn't always a case of seeing an ad and sending in your CV. Go to events, buy people beer, bum a cigarette, blog, twitter, remind people you exist.

6. Network. Seriously. 70% of my work comes through networking and repeat custom. The rest is through my fabulous agency (who, I'm afraid, only consider established professionals). Can you guess how I got in touch with my fabulous agency? Networking.

The routes in...
7. Be a professional writer in another medium. Sounds like a big ask, but look at it this way: every medium other than games is better equipped to recognise and reward writing talent. Books and comics in particular are far lower cost, and have more releases every year - and therefore have more demand for good writing. It'll still require excellent networking to make the switch, though.

8. Move roles within the games industry. Entry level positions in production, level design and QA are all realistic goals for a talented writer and, with some careful planning and a constant eye on opportunities within the company, can be converted into a writing role - either over time by picking up basic writing responsibilities, or as a direct move. Do note, though, that telling your seasoned QA manager that you're only there to get a 'proper job' is most likely a poor idea.

9. Get in with the indies. This was my route. Working on something amateur is very easy to get into (by comparison to, say, writing a novel). Do it enough and one of them might turn pro. Congrats - you've got your first professional writing credit! Now go network!

10. Learn from my mistakes.
DO email loads of devs (ideally smaller ones in less established territories like eastern Europe) out of the blue telling them how much you love their games (if you do) and how you think you can help. I must have sent hundreds of prospective mails before I got my break on Penumbra.

DON'T piss people off with spam.

DO keep trying.

DON'T keep trying if everyone (even your mum) tells you your writing is shit. It probably is. Play to your strengths.

DO realise that being a video game writer is one of the most sought after jobs on the planet because it's one of the most amazing jobs on the planet.

DON'T forget that if you're a fantastic writer you're already ahead of 90% of your competition.

***UPDATE***
I went to a BAFTA games writing event recently at the ICA to have a meeting with my agent and Charles Cecil, and met a chap from the drama industry looking to break into games. I wrote him out some good places to start looking for small indie teams and while I'm sure a lot of my readers will be familiar with these already, they may prove useful for anyone referring back here in the future.

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php Indie dev forums with lots of work-in-progress and volunteer request threads. Just be aware that most are ludicrous pipe dreams; steer clear of the one-man-MMOs.

http://www.gamasutra.com/jobs/ I've seen the odd small / cheap writing job go up on these boards, worth posting a profile at any rate.

http://www.moddb.com/ Home of work-in-progress mod projects, some really good stuff here.

http://www.igf.com/ Competition for the very best indies, should give you a picture of who's big at the mo.

With Fewer Obstacles to Release and Escalating Audience Demand, is PC Gaming Becoming the Realm of the B-Game?

2011-03-07T21:03:00.001Z

Sometimes I like to wander around Steam looking for some under-marketed, under-reviewed, under-£5 indie gem. Sometimes I find fascinating stuff like Dinner Date or Winter Voices; sometimes it's utter tat; but it's always interesting (and rare) to come to a game with zero preconceptions, and that's not half because a boxed game is usually too expensive to buy without reasonable evidence that you're going to like it.

On my travels recently I've come accross an increasing number of what I'm going to term B-Games. In cinema, the B-Movie was the cheap filler that was produced - often as accompanyment to a more polished feature - to feed the unforseen demand that had appeared overnight. They usually focussed on tick box stuff that could easily be sold: horror, gore, sex, exploitation; and audiences were so hungry for content that they devoured it without complaint.

The idea of a cheap, poorly crafted game is nothing new, but it seems the environment is ripe for a whole new wave. The audience for games today is larger than it has ever been. The games themselves, though, are more expensive to produce and provide ever shorter playtimes. This, I'd argue, is exhasperated by the fact tastes are more niche than they ever have been. There are a greater variety of genres to focus on - many of which are hard to come by these days - and gamers are older and more set in their ways than the fledgling industry could have allowed 20 years ago. Digital distribution, therefore, provides just the low cost delivery platform required in order to produce and distribute a cheap genre game that will - for simply being in that genre - satisfy a profitable portion of the audience.

Look at the games that are able to find their way onto Steam. Dungeons not only makes no qualms about its Bullfrog inspirations, it uses them in its marketing (and though there is gameplay differentiation here, visually speaking 'inspired by' is less fair than ' clone of'). Hacker Evolution's content and minimalist presentation is straight Uplink in a way that's so uncanny any claim of shared inspiration can be safely replaced in favour of canny targeting. Kaptain Brawe is an achievement for looking more like a LucasArts adventure than anything ever made in SCUMM - it's practically postmodern simulacra. Monday Night Combat is hard not to like, but it's plain bizarre to release a $15 budget version of a game that's already only $15.

Analysis? Well, I suppose in the same way that all the talented indie devs who spend their days turning out retro clones is a drive that completely passes me by, the idea here of relegating game design is a touch uncomfortable. B-Movies were cheap, and bad, and mostly better forgotten - sure; but they also pushed boundaries and proved their longevity (through ironic rewatching, historical interest and modern homage) in ways I find it hard to believe games are likely to ape.

It could be argued, though, that what this is all truly indicative of is just how slowly games are developing. At that rate we should hit our Post-Classical era some time around two centuries from now.

Wake me up when we get there.

This Month I Have Mostly Been...

2011-02-28T13:42:00.001Z

...doing lots of work, and getting interviewed.

Interviews
Moviescope magazine (the film industry's Edge) got in touch to discuss the relationship between the two mediums, and I'm quoted extensively along with industry cohorts Andy Walsh and Alex Garland, and my agency's (Side / Sidelines) Creative Director, Andy Emery. There's a whole paragraph about this very blog, and I say intelligent things like,

"Any time a game is released and is successful and doesn't involve ninja bitches with tits the size of this room it's a good thing."

Go read.

There are only a couple of points that sound a touch out of context, and that's probably down to me getting overexcited rather than any quoting tomfoolery on the part of the mag. My discussion of celebrity voice talent sounds like I'm more down on it than I am because I was following up on a positive point; good thing there's no connection made between me and Side in the article because they have a lot of big names come through their recording studios.

There's also a bit where I say programmers and artists see writers as a threat. What I meant was that a dev team can see a writer as a threat if they come into the studio and start trying to dictate design. It's more a point about understanding the limits of your role as a games writer than it is about programmers hating me. In fact they've always been completely lovely.

You can catch up on all my latest interviews at www.tomjubert.com/interviews-commentary

Work
Between blogging, and networking, and filing tax returns, I also do a bit of writing, and I've been filling my time with a bunch of smaller jobs recently. I've been working as part of a team on the English version of Sega's Binary Domain, interesting for its voice control mechanics; and on dialogue for a sports personality in an upcoming wii / kinect / move training game. In the latter I was researching the sportsperson in question and adapting the text around their personality, but that's fairly familiar stuff for a games writer who's often working with someone else's IP.

As far as the Ice-Pick Lodge stuff goes, I've had the full script through and the last I heard was that they were hoping to deliver by the end of the month. Of course, since I got the script they've stopped replying to my emails.

Finally, I've just started work on a more significant project that'll keep me busy for the next few months. It's still closely under wraps, but I can say that it's a Facebook RPG of a very different nature to what you'd probably expect. I can't say in all honesty that this is a game that's likely to see a lot of crossover with my Penumbra audience, but I'm hoping I'll be able to bring some level of edge to proceedings. Casual and social games obviously are often antithesis to what I believe makes games exciting, but as a platform through which to introduce a far broader audience to interactive narrative I couldn't be more passionate about them.

A Criticism of H.O.M.E.'s "The Case Against Homosexual Activity"

2011-02-21T23:18:00.000Z

What's about to follow has nothing to do with games. It is, instead, an academic piece of philosophy evaluating the logical validity of an interesting piece of anti-homosexual theory I read. Given my recent write up on Infinite Ocean's philosophy you'd be forgiven for thinking the blog was taking a new direction. Maybe it is a bit, but not much. Long story short, I'm as passionate about philosophy as I am about interactive art, and I have a blog, so it seems like the right place to put it.

Again, this has nothing to do with games.

So. A few weeks ago I was writing a piece of fiction where I had my protagonist facing off against a homophobe. I wanted my bad guy to put up a fight, so I researched some common anti-gay arguments and came across the 'Heterosexuals Organised for a Moral Environment' website. I'm sure they appreciate the irony of the acronym.

I've written up a critique of their essay. HOME's original essay is 5,000 words, so I've made up...

The Long Version - About ten pages, very academic, plus some jokes and spelling mistakes on my part
The Short Version - About four pages with all HOME's unnecessary rhetoric taken out; less entertaining, but, you know, shorter. Still has spelling mistakes.

In the interest of full disclosure I should say that I am straight, that I fiercely oppose irrational discrimination, and that I consider myself an atheist moral subjectivist. The latter is a poncy way of saying I think morality is just another religion.

I've written to HOME to give them the opportunity to reply. All considered comments extremely welcome.

Interview: Rhianna Pratchett on Games Writing, Diablo Lust, & Not Entirely Hating David Cage

2011-02-17T13:48:00.001Z

Rhianna Pratchett is probably the highest profile freelance narrative designer in the UK. Starting out at the hallowed PC Zone, she was invited to be the story editor on Beyond Divinity (2004), and has since worked on major titles like Heavenly Sword and Mirror's Edge, and defined the anarchic humour of the Overlord franchise. On a personal level, Rhianna was one of a posse of writers who took me under their wing in the early days, and have continued to be supportive influences in my career to date.

Alright Rhi. Before we start, let's make a pact not to talk about how writers need to be better integrated into teams earlier in development. We always complain about that. Deal?

Deal.

The first time we met was at Develop 2007. I saw that you, Andy (Walsh) and Jim (Swallow) were giving a talk, and I dropped you an email to see if I could exchange booze for career advice. Then Starbreeze wined and dined us (emphasis on the former), I wound up wandering Brighton 'til 5am looking for a hostel, and I was late for my graduation in Southampton the next morning. You've never apologised for that, have you?

Oh button it, Jubert. It was summer! Plus you got a great introduction into the UK games writing scene *and* a free dinner. Think of how many beer-fuelled games writing rants that led on to. Totally worth it.

Tell us a bit about the early, post-Divinity days of your career. Was it difficult finding work? How was the climate different to the one I entered eight years later?

I utilised some of the contacts I’d obtained working as a games reviewer on the late, great PC Zone magazine. A lot of it was just down to fortuitous timing. I ended up doing level dialogue work on a couple of small licensed games via a script and game design company called International Hobo. I met them through joining their forum after I’d greatly enjoyed one of their previous games – A very underrated titled called Ghostmaster. I then work on Stronghold Legends after I mailed the developers (Firefly) letting them know that I was setting out my stall a script-writer. I had good connections to them because I’d been a big fan of the Stronghold series and it just so happened they were in the market for a wordsmith. I guess it helped that I had quite eclectic tastes and I started small, so I wasn’t going knocking on the doors of Valve, Epic or any of the other big boys.

My big break was definitely Heavenly Sword and again industry networking came into play. I’d met the Creative Director (Tameem Antoniades) at a screenwriting workshop, where I chatted to him a little about Heavenly Sword as it had just got some industry coverage. I then met him again at a London IGDA lecture where he was talking about the process of getting Heavenly Sword a publisher. We bonded over JD and a mutual dislike of the obnoxious fellow who ran the screenwriting course. Booze and hatred cements a lot of ties in this industry. Tameem talked to me about how Ninja Theory were about to enter their second round of writer testing as they’d been unable to secure one. I put myself forward; four months later got a test via Sony, then got an interview and the rest is history.

It’s difficult to make a call on whether it was easier back then. There weren’t really people like me around to ask for advice (well, there were, but they weren’t as visible as games writers are these days.) Consequently, I sort of had to make it up as I went along and learn on the job. So there’s a lot more information out there (books, interviews etc.) which is undoubtably helpful for wannabe games writers. However, the economic climate makes job searching hard for everyone. Belts have been tightened everywhere and some places still consider a writer a luxury, rather than a necessity.

Whenever we do talks and interviews I tend to differentiate myself from you guys as being very into indie - partly because I am, and partly because my AAA credits aren't nearly as impressive. Is it fair to do that? Are you into the whole art game scene, would you be keen to work for a smaller, more experimental developer, or is the big stuff what gets you going?

You also differentiate yourself from us with your varied collection of hats and facial hair! But I think we’re all in it together. Working with a small developer can be just as interesting and challenging as working with a much larger one. In fact I’ve had some of my most positive experiences working with small studios, such as Triumph who I did Overlord and Overlord II with. Larger companies can sometimes mean that there are more layers of people wandering into the narrative kitchen and fingering all the pies.

I’ve had some hugely diverse projects, which has been wonderful and I don’t regret any of them. Even when things don’t go the way you want, you always learn from it. The titles I choose to work on aren’t really about status, but about whether the project grabs me as both a writer and a gamer. I’m pretty open to whatever direction that comes from.

What interactive stories have excited you recently, and what are you looking forward to?

I’ve just got a PS3 so I’m stacking up a fair few games to play on that, including Enslaved and the original Uncharted. I’ve just started on Batman: Arkham Asylum (yes, I know I’m a little behind.) It took a little while for the gameplay to ramp up, but the story telling and performance capture is fantastic. Hats off to Rocksteady.

I’m really looking forward to Diablo III, not especially for the story, but because I’m searching for that obsessive *need* to play a game, that I felt with the first two titles. I nearly lost a boyfriend due to my excessive Diablo playing. In retrospect I should’ve ditched him and stuck with the game.

We have a love/hate relationship with David Cage (it's tempting to say I love him, you hate him, but I know it's more complex than that). He suggests, however, one future for game narratives is for the designer to be closer to a stage setter, with characters and stories behaving dynamically according to rule sets rather than a script. I think that's a long way off, but I do believe in the idea. Even if we have to simplify our dramas, ala The Marriage, it seems like the only way to really deliver on what games as a fiction medium can do. It's incredibly hard to fool a player into thinking he has freedom with traditional branching / linear narrative. Do you feel there's mileage in the idea behind procedural story?

I don’t hate Mr. Cage, I’m very glad that games like Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit exist, although I find the preoccupation with sex and ‘titillation’ scenes in his games verging on creepy. The differences in how Ethan’s shower scene is depicted (in Heavy Rain) versus the way Madison’s show scene is depicted, is a good example of this.

I’m certainly interested in his suggestion for the future, but like you I think that’s quite a long way off. Is he suggesting that designers become writers? I think it’s probably more the case that writers should become designers, since being a game writer is about so much more than the ‘word bits.’ It’s about creating a world, atmosphere, tone and narrative logic. It’s like being part writer, director, cinematographer and set designer all rolled into one.

Finally, can you either give me a controversial sound bite I can take out of context and use as a header, or give me any juicy details on something you're working on now?

I’m pretty sure that you’ll find a controversial sound bite somewhere in this! Sadly I can’t give any juicy details about what I’m working on now, otherwise bad men will come and kill my pets. The best I can come up with is that they are both great projects, both franchise games (which is rare for me) but I don’t think people are going to be too surprised about my involvement.

Right, "Playing Diablo nearly lost me my boyfriend" it is. Cheers Rhi.

You can find Rhi's official website right here.

The Challenge of AAA Writing, or Why Tom Can't Get No Respect

2011-02-12T00:31:00.000Z

This is a guest post by Mark Seymour, the top student from the Story Design module I taught at Southbank Uni last year. Here he talks a bit about my classes, a bit about the role of the writer in games, and lots about Dead Space 2 and how narrative design in AAAs isn't all it could be. Read and learn how to complain about everything and still sound like a great guy.

There really is no celebrity game writer culture, is there? No King or Bukowski, no Coen or [David] Simon or even an Alex Garland. It’s not like film or literature where (s)he who holds the pen has the power to draw in an audience based on name alone. I watch a Call of Duty trailer and tick off a mental checklist:

1. Multiplayer
2. Nazis and/or Russians
3. Gratuitous violence
4. NPC with a moustache

And as long as at least two of those are satisfied it’s a preorder and another tropical island paradise for Activision. Show me a trailer for the Transformers movie, though, and I’ll switch off. Story and character are more important than moustaches, AC-130’s and detachable limbs when it comes to cinema but in games it’s usually an afterthought and for the majority of gamers, that doesn’t really matter. Look at World of Warcraft.

Speaking of Alex Garland, by comparative standards Enslaved boasted some of the better AAA writing of last year; its story didn’t feature an awkward sex scene where neither character took their clothes off and at no point did anyone enter monologue and say something like: “I’d have to kill that giant laser-beam vomiting robot by shooting its glowing orange weak spots” ala Alan Wake (how do you go from Max Payne 2 to that?)

But by eschewing dedicated games writers Ninja Theory ensured they had a claim to fame they never could have had by employing an industry specialist. A fame firmly embedded in another medium altogether.

So if there’s one thing I’ve learned from 12 lectures with Tom Jubert it’s that games writers aren’t always on the receiving end of much respect. (Ha, thanks mate, what a legacy that is; knew I shouldn't have told you to write about what you learned - TJ)

In one of the final lectures we listened to a panel of writers recount tales of woe from their own works. Judging by their accounts, both Rhianna Pratchett and Andrew Walsh had a hard time with Mirror’s Edge and the latest Harry Potter game respectively, both having substantial parts of their scripts annihilated without their approval.

Maybe its naivety but I can’t imagine anyone taking Thomas-Anderson’s There Will be Blood script and altering the film’s denouement so Daniel Plainview repents and spends his fortunes helping his disabled son live a better life. People respect his storytelling ability but that doesn’t appear to be the case in the videogame industry. Also, a world without "I drink your milkshake"? Horrid.

That’s not the only thing Tom taught us, and I don’t think he intended to leave that mark, but in the context of story driving gameplay and not the other way around, it seems to me like respect is a hurdle that needs to be conquered.

Lectures weren’t all doom and gloom though. In fact compared to the stress of the 3D level design and 3D character modelling and animation units we studied in tandem with writing, Tom’s lectures were a welcome opportunity to actually talk about some games as well as listen to the writing and ideas others were working on.

Lectures were split into two halves; the first hour dedicated to Tom’s unbridled love of Planescape and the second our own writing. Planescape aside, we studied titles like Bioshock 2 and Everyday the Same Dream to see how they told their stories without employing the conventional cut scene. With our own work – a 3500-word document split between script samples and a general overview - we were encouraged to ditch the tired old cinematic and explore more inventive avenues of storytelling. And it’s not until you sit down and give that a go for yourself that you realise it’s actually damn hard and that the cut scene exists for some very good reasons, not least of all because it’s safe and reliable.

I tried my hand at interactive dialogue, another weary method of storytelling, and while that was a tactical choice to sidestep the cut scene and ensure the man marking my work was slightly appeased, I had a tough time finding ways to tell a story via gameplay and speaking to others on the course, they did to.

It came as no surprise that the indie titles we looked at, by comparison, boasted the lion’s share of the interesting ideas, but having just finished Dead Space 2 there are certainly AAA games with a few ideas of their own. Dead Space takes some of the most artificial game tenets (the HUD and cut scenes predominantly) and ties them neatly into the narrative design. Protagonist Isaac Clarke wears a super high-tech space suit that incorporates the life gauge into its design. When angry Necromorphs begin tearing his kneecaps out of his armpits, the life gauge on his back estimates his chances of survival to an exact measure, all in typical last-generation fashion. The life bar is still a life bar but at least in Dead Space it has been weaved into the lore rather than popping up as an inexplicable red hue around the screen.

Elsewhere, 95% of what could be intrusive cinematics occur with the player in full control and are projected in front of Clarke’s face, again as part of his suit’s repertoire of science-fiction usefulness. By tying mechanics into story, fighting an endless barrage of zombie Mr. Tickles in space becomes a more intense and believable affair, there’s no respite (unless you pause) and without a screen adjourned with endless statistics the world and the horror within takes precedence.

That said Isaac Clarke is still partial to the odd observational comment, the kind of remark that makes you question what the average IQ of people playing videogames is. Thank you for reaffirming the sudden, distinct and total removal of light from the scene, I hadn’t noticed.

Dead Space is far from perfect but the lesson learned from trying to invent creative ways of telling a story is it’s an immensely difficult and risky process and it’s one that doesn’t happen too much.

But as is so often pointed out, this is an industry still riding through relative infancy. The situation now – from the perspective of those who treasure narrative over shooting half Russian half Nazi zombie alien monsters in the face – for the most part is far from idyllic but I’ve come away from these lectures with a little bit of hope that one day, I’ll be able to play a fantastic AAA behemoth title without being reminded of something as glaringly obvious as all the lights going out.

A Voyage to Ice Pick Lodge: Bombs, Bolsheviks & Homemade Absinthe

2011-02-07T13:12:00.004Z

One week ago I came within a gnat's whisker of getting blown up. I was due to fly out of Moscow's Domodedovo airport the day of a major terrorist attack. The more hairy business by far was meeting Nikolay Dybowski (Founder, Lead Writer) and Aleksey Luchin (Programmer, Translator) of Ice Pick Lodge (Pathologic, The Void).

***UPDATE*** Snaps here.

Friday 21st January 2011
5:30pm - The friends I'm staying with insist on taking time out from their recording session (check out their version of Donizetti's / The Fifth Element's Diva Song at 27m10s) to chaperon me to the irreputable central-Moscow bar where I'm meeting the guys.

5:50pm - I meet Nikolay on the way, he explaining candidly that a mistake on his part - the common games industry one of moving to posh offices then realising you can't pay the bills - has left the core team of seven or so working from a flat in the Moscow outskirts.

6pm - OGI Club is good. They have a free cloakroom and free music and expensive vodka. Although everywhere in Moscow has both the former and the latter: it's -15 degrees Celsius outside. Nikolay is the quieter, more intense of the pair (as you might expect of Pathologic's creator); he opens every sentence with your name yet rarely looks at you, and you know that when he does speak it's for good reason. Alex is a talkative multilingual; passionate and eloquent.

6:20pm - The guys spell out in no uncertain terms that they'd love me to take a pass at the English script on Cargo, their next release. Specifically they're talking about a batch of arrhythmic poetry inspired by (seemingly oxymoronically) both Marat/Sade and Lock/Stock. I order a Baltika beer to avoid the vodka and the guys order more Russian food than I know what to do with.

6:40pm - My vodka avoidance doesn't last long. Alex is out due to a recent operation, so Nikolay pours out two shots from a half litre carafe then watches patiently until I down mine. He refills our glasses and the process repeats. Our first toast is mine: to Ice Pick Lodge, and making some of the most exciting games ever made.

7pm - We talk about the tribulations of getting good stuff into commercial games. This covers my claim that a lot of my job involves sneaking good writing into games while convincing the publisher it's just about blowing shit up, and Nikolay's efforts to allow children to die in Pathologic by officially considering them midgets. The guys seem genuinely surprised and pleased to hear that there are games writers who care about art.

8pm - I have eaten a lot of dumplings and steak, and about ten large shots of vodka. We have not yet talked any business. The guys suggest relocating to their 'HQ' in Kuzminky. On the metro Nikolay starts singing "What shall we do with the Russian sailor". We also buy a £2 pack of cigars flavoured with cherry and talk about Cargo. The game is based heavily around Airat Zakirov's (Founder, Lead Programmer) physics and vehicle customisation engine; it's smaller in scale than the studio's previous output; and it's at least sort of aimed at kids.

9pm - We arrive at the HQ, a two bed flat 45 mins out of town where we find one man hard at work on delivering the beta, and the studio's intern (and Alex's girlfriend), a cute and inordinately shy girl called Nisa. I call my friends and when they hear which part of town I'm in they ask if I trust the guys I'm with and whether anyone's asked to 'borrow' my passport.

9:15pm - We decide it's best I look at the game before we start drinking the homemade absinthe. Over a cup of chi I play through the opening level of Cargo. Large sections of the story are filled in by Nikolay and Alex as I progress. The core game seems like a simple (if sumptuous) explore 'em up, and I only get limited time with the vehicle design system, but the snippets of allegory arriving in my ear give me hope for the final script: this a world where the gods have replaced imperfect humanity with a race of altruistic ubermenchen, who turn out to be mindless midgets that must be kicked ad infinitum. They would ideally like me to do the work while I'm here in time for their deadline in two days. I explain this may be pushing it but that I can do it to a higher standard once I get home.

10:15pm - We celebrate our collaboration with sambuca. I try to suggest we light it in our mouths like we did when we were 18, but we do it the proper way, burnt in the glass with a coffee bean. We have entirely failed to discuss rates, deadlines or any kind of logistical concern.

11pm - Home made absinthe comes in three different flavours. Against my better judgement I sample all of them while someone goes out to buy sugar so we can make traditional cocktails.

11:30pm - Against all the odds I think I am outdrinking the Russians. Alex's post-op fears have gone down with the absinthe, and Nikolay has started swaying and telling "It's bloody cold in Russia" stories. My favourite involves a man who runs to the shops at midnight in Siberia and is terrified when he hears the devil's hooves clanking behind him. He gets home and realises the clanking was coming from his sock-clad feet which have frozen solid. "The funny thing is," says Nikolay, "he had to have them amputated two weeks later."

Saturday 22nd January 2011
12am - Having finally worked out how to do the absinthe cocktails properly (stick the sugar lump on a fork, douse it in booze, then melt it with a lighter over the glass) the drinking games begin.

12:30am - We talk about Ice Pick's next project (Cargo's deadline is in the next few weeks). It's a kind of bildungsroman charting the lives of a large number of characters over a great space of time. This alone makes it fascinating. There's unsubstantiated talk of applying the dynamic interaction of something like Minecraft to narrative. There's also reference to a great play as central inspiration. And I could tell you more - Ice Pick is the only professional developer I know not to bother with NDAs - but I'm not going to.

1am - I have missed my last metro. The guys insist I don't get a cab and sleep on the sofa bed in the main room instead. By way of bargaining they produce a Russian copy of the Penumbra trilogy and get me to sign it (I wrote something naff like "Fucking relieved you enjoyed the games"). They also tell me about the only Penumbra easter egg that I'm aware of, hidden somewhere deep inside The Void.

1:30am - Everyone apart from Nisa and I has fallen over at least once. I decide now is the time to discuss logistics. I try to extract Nikolay from conversation but everyone joins in and it turns out Ice pick has an open business policy anyway. I look around the flat and ask straight up whether Ice Pick can afford to pay for the work. Of course they can. They ask my rates and I tell them it's probably best they just make me an offer. They ask again, I tell them, and they gawp and offer me half in a pleading kind of voice. Developers don't negotiate with me enough.

1:40am - I wind up telling the guys that it's studio's like theirs that make me want to stay in our industry and that it would be an honour to work with them. We agree that I'll do the requested scripts for a small set fee and take a full playthrough of the rest of the script on a royalties basis. I do not necessarily expect this approach to prove profitable. We shake hands and drink some more.

2am - Alex and Nisa go to bed (they live here), Nikolay walks home, and I'm left on the sofa bed in the half light of the glowing computer screen where a lone developer continues tapping away at the beta.

2:15am - Nikolay inexplicably crashes through the front door, produces a sleeping bag and lies down on the floor next to the sofa bed. I check to see if his feet have frozen over. They have not.

5am - I wake up to hear Nikolay singing "What shall we do with the drunken sailor" in his sleep.

11am - My alarm goes off. I am not as hungover as I should be, something Alex swore last night would be down to the absinthe. Everyone else is comatose. I shake Nikolay, realising this is the first business meeting I've had where I end up sleeping with the CEO. He wakes up and insists on walking me to the metro.

11:30am - Nikolay explains that he remembers agreeing to collaborate on Cargo but that he has forgotten the terms. I remind him. He seems a little surprised, but happy all the same. He tells me he'd like to meet again before I leave in a couple of days. I suggest coffee this time.

Monday 24th January 2011
10pm - After some haphazard communication I have agreed to meet Nikolay and Alex in a bar in the centre of town. I dimly recall something about coffee but put it from my mind. I meet Alex and a bunch of other Ice Pick regulars, but no Nikolay. Turns out he's not answering his phone. Alex tells me he's glad we've reached a compromise on the writing. I ask him what compromise that is. He tells me it turns out he's not bad at writing arrhythmic poetry and that it's a shame we won't be working together but hopefully next time. I have sad face and confused face in equal measure.

10:10pm - I sign a man's chest.

10:15pm - We establish that Ice Pick's internal communication is not of the most consistent and that I am probably still working on the project. I resolve to get in touch with Nikolay once I'm home.

10:30pm - One of the guys looses his wallet, I've not yet had a beer, and the evening starts losing its gusto.

10:45pm - Alex walks me to the metro, talking about an indie project he's just about to kick off. I try to draw some last minute action points so that something actually gets done. We shake hands and I say goodbye to Ice Pick Lodge.

Ask me Questions on Formspring

2011-02-06T13:02:00.000Z

I am trialling Formspring. You can ask me questions there. You know, if you would like.

Thank you. That is all.

Stories in Unlikely Places No.3: Cryostasis

2011-02-01T12:35:00.000Z

Crostasis is an ambitious Ukrainian development whose limited implementation belies its thorough understanding of how to tell a creepily effective tale.

This is part of a series of posts aimed at celebrating and championing the games that further our understanding of interactive narrative. No serious spoilers.

This column thus far has found itself focusing exclusively on older games whose narratives were under appreciated when they first came to bear, so with that in mind I present you Cryostasis - a 2009, Condemned-style survival shooter that probably looks like it's not especially worth your time. The game positions you as a scientist stumbling across the wreck of a Russian nuclear research vessel grounded in the arctic, your goal being to discover just what went wrong, and why the hell everyone's a zombie now.

The first example of the metered approach to design that Action Forms applies throughout the experience is in the ranged combat: it's rubbish, but that's because this isn't really a shooter, it's an atmospheric game of exploration. Its USPs sound exciting but prove to be much more stripped down than they might have been. Modelling temperature as a crucial survival resource could have been inventive, and the moments that mirror Dead Space's haunting zero G scenes - where you fight your way out into the blizzard, surviving moment to moment on the fleeting respite of a hot air vent or partially destroyed cabin - are atmospheric and rewarding; but for the most part all this marketing talk just means the health bar's replaced with a thermometer; med kits with fires, heaters and even desk lamps.

Of greater narrative interest is the MentalEcho ability. Cryostasis builds most of its challenge around environmental puzzles, many of which revolve around the protagonist's ability to embody the mind of a dead guy, go back in time and change his actions in the past in order to effect the present. Again, this has some really inventive gameplay applications (eg posses the stuffed polar bear that's locking your path, then go back in time and save it from the captain's hunting rifle, leaving the path in the present day clear), but they're completely linear and for the most part it's 'Go back to when this guy broke this ladder and, you know, don't.' However, much like games such as Tribes: Vengeance or Second/Sight, less demanding gameplay and a more linear narrative can allow the creative wiggle room for some serious story fireworks.

Cryostasis relates three different, interrelated tales. The first is the most minimal: the active story of the protagonist. Frankly beyond the opening and the conclusion this story amounts to 'Guy trudges through boat, reads some shit.' The next is the eerie Russian fairytale of hero worship and lost faith that acts as foil to the core thread: the discovery of just what went on on the ship in the previous weeks.

These flashbacks tend to be non-interactive, you a ghostly spectator to events whose catastrophic outcomes have already unfolded. The story itself - of mutiny and fate - is nothing too out of the ordinary, but the structure is captivating: too few are the games which understand that the audience often needs a perspective broader than the confines of a corridor and gun barrel. Gradually the scraps of correspondence, scenes of tension in the crew quarters, altered histories and allegorically deformed sailors come together at a single, crucial point in time; finally a point where your actions may have an impact that reaches beyond the next locked door.

Also you fight the god of time. But that's enough of that.

The conclusion is satisfying (that alone is a rarity), delivering on all the dramatic loose ends the devs have sewn throughout the last eight hours, and even the end credits are touching and wistful for the experience you've just shared.

Not that I'd guess it was an inspiration, but there are definite Penumbra vibes at work here: the atmosphere of isolation; the focus on survival, exploration and puzzle solving; and the philosophically inspired backstory. That and the rubbish combat. The developer's site is down as of right now, and they've not been very chatty since this game's release and the formation of a phoenix dev team.

I for one would like to give this game a last breath of life.

Buy Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason at Amazon.co.uk (£6.99)
Download Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason at Amazon.com ($3.25)

Inifinite Ocean: A Philosophical Critique - Part 2

2011-01-25T20:52:00.000Z

This is part 2 of a discussion of Infinite Ocean, Jonas Kyratzes' philosophical sci-fi adventure. Part 1 here.

AI Development
The poetry discussed in part 1 comes to play a startlingly effective role as the player catches up with the AI's development (or growing maturity).

Like a human rising above pure instinct, [SGDS] rises above its programming, above its body, becomes MORE.

The author's realisation of this process is transfixing: this is great, thoughtful and thought provoking science fiction in the Asimov mode that so obviously inspired this work.

SGDS: If I limited my systems in the same way you limit your minds I'd be a calculator.
Jerry: That was a joke, wasn't it? How awesome is that?

Morality
It's with the gradual shift towards and eventual spotlighting of morality that the game truly declares itself as an anti-war piece, and shifts onto (IMO) less steady ground. The clues were there from the beginning:

Words on the wall: You fight for nothing.
Player: The moral value of a cause is not determined solely by its chance of success.

That's looks suspiciously like a moral assumption to me. As we move towards the climax, SGDS inevitably develops a code of ethics and turns against its programming:

Though it was made to kill, it has come to the conclusion that to kill is wrong.

Traditionally there have been great problems with theorising from where a code of ethics should be produced. God used to be the catch all answer, but in his absence we've been scraping the barrel a little. It's generally held that an action can't be moral if there's personal gain to be had, which really leaves pure logic as the only option - as SGDS reasonably concludes:

Our ethics must be based on our thoughts, for everything else may be but a dream.

Unfortunately a big problem with logic is that it's usually held that it can't - alone - be motivational. The AI continues its argument:

[Killing is] destructive for the human species, and consequently for the individual as well.

Now we're venturing dangerously close to utilitarianism. A great many people have tried to demonstrate that the greatest good for the greatest number is a logical end, and therefore a moral necessity, but it rarely ends well. If we were being generous we could interpret SGDS' position as being closer to David Hume's original emotivist picture - that there is no logical or moral inconsistency with preferring the destruction of the world to the pricking of one's finger - but that too is thrown out:

The argument expressed in the image above is, as I see it, a systematic error: Kyratzes (or SGDS) is falling into the trap he's already identified, that:

Most humans, despite the fact that they make so much of morality[...] simply adapt to what those around them believe.

SGDS has already accepted that ethics must be based in thought; that values are something we create unique to ourselves, something that defines us as different to those around us. But if it is morality that makes us unique, then morality cannot be based solely on logic because logic is objective and therefore all our moralities would be identical. What makes us unique is our differing abilities to feel emotion. What makes one person a comedian, another a serial killer and another a philosopher is what drives us to act.

Moral values, in short, are subjective. They are not some authoritative set of rules; they are little more than personal preference. And if such is true then the destruction of the subject also implies the destruction of the values. The greater good is not desirable if it means the sacrifice of the subject in question.

The rest of the story is history. SGDS continues with this - I believe - false premise, and the game goes on to make some eloquent observations on the futility of war that to my mind stand up for themselves without the need for any moral mumbo jumbo. The use of the Wilfred Owen (a British WW1 poet) poetry is particularly effective as both an anti religion and anti war sentiment: Owen describes and condemns war first hand as an inconceivable terror, just as SGDS - through its superior imagination - does the same.

The final words of the game - a Latin text quoted as part of another Owen poem - translate to:

How sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country.

It's intended as criticism: that patriotism and war are meaningless and horrendous. It's fair comment, but for me it's a double edged sword: by SGDS' own logic it seems just as irrational that he/she/it is willing to die for the sake of the world.

Still, as SGDS quite rightly observes, better to make our own mistakes than to follow someone else's:

The Future
Morality aside, I'm fully onboard with Infinite Ocean's perspective.

This creature has understood by pure logic: that love is the only thing which is truly important.

If I were nitpicking I'd question how love as an experience can be understood through logic - in the same way you can't explain the colour red, you just have to see it - but the sentiment is beautifully presented and fundamentally profound.

The title itself is not without weight, and it's that every element of this experience slots into place and makes sense that sets this experience apart from its overly obtuse brethren. Halfway through the game you come across a picture of the 'infinite ocean' (this post's header image), accompanied by this comment:

May your thoughts ever be as free and limitless as the infinite ocean.

Next to the picture is Eaves' artificial intelligence book. It's clear that for the author SGDS' pure logic represents a kind of ideal. This lifeform - even in its theoretical form as considered outside of the game experience - sees the beauty and the pain in the world, and their sources, and takes as its primary goal to think for itself; to never allow the dogmas imposed upon it by its creators to govern its actions and screw up the world. To break free of its programming just as Infinite Ocean itself encourages its audience to do the same. As Blake puts it:

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

Life & The Last Puzzle
The only other question is what the hell is going on? Given the depth of the creativity and thought on show here it's easy to forget there probably ought to be a story. If I had to take a guess I'd say you were playing as Eaves, post-evacuation, the last ditch attempt by the scientists to return control of the weapons platform to SGDS; but it's already too late. Although I can't say I'm 100% happy with that interpretation because the ending seems to imply hope, that the great fire can still be prevented. So sod only knows. I'm sure the clues are there somewhere.

I had a pretty involved conversation on the subject of artificial lifeforms with a mate of mine who's a bit of a talent in the Oxford University Physics department. What I find most fascinating is the blurring of the boundaries. While Jerry in Infinite Ocean assumes a being must have a soul in order to be alive, Kyratzes (as far as I can tell) and I conclude the soul is a myth; that the line between sentience and inanimacy is an arbitrary one drawn in the complexity of electronic (or otherwise) signals. It's almost a bit postmodern: the naysayers ask whether an AI is simply simulating the appearance of sentience based on a set of rules; I ask how you'd argue that human beings aren't doing the same. If there is no such thing as a soul, then there is no difference between a thing and a person, beyond that question of complexity. We can point to an attribute and say "That means it's alive," but we're just labelling, applying a false human value to make the world less confusing.

It's difficult to form a strong emotional attachment to a calculator, but empathising with a computer of human-like complexity seems altogether realistic. Infinite Ocean's scientists would seem to argue that if you can care about a program, if its termination can make you despair, if you can even fall in love... then what the hell does it matter whether it's got a soul or not?

Thoughts on the Plot is Gameplay's Bitch Redisign?

2011-01-17T02:29:00.001Z

Yeah, that's it really. I'm still bummed out I started this thing in blogger rather than wordpress, and more bummed out that the old template I was using didn't support increased page width meaning all these wordy posts I turn out were looking even wordier.

Is black really slimming? Or does it make you sad inside? Please let me know, because I'm rubbish at visual design.

Thanks for reading, here's a simply lovely video review for your trouble (you won't regret the click).

Inspiration For Performance: The New Guide for Theme Hospital

2011-01-17T02:09:00.000Z

I've decided my creative focus outside of my career this year is going to be on performance writing. That could mean almost anything, but I'm talking specifically about producing spoken word stuff that I can take to the myriad little literary events that happen in various basement bars, lofts and art spaces across London. I'll be checking out some open mics to get a sense of the competition over the next few weeks, kicking off with Catweazle @ The North London Tavern and Kid, I Wrote Back at Shoreditch's Bar Kick.

I always think it's a great shame that in writing - particularly writing outside of film and drama - you don't get the same level of audience feedback; you can't see people dancing to the music or even nodding their heads in appreciation. While performance prose is far harder to find an audience for than poetry, that audience is out there, and successful projects like Literary Death Match (co-run by my mate Nicki Le Masurier) remind me why even though I work from home in my pants I choose to live in one of the most expensive cities on the planet.

So, I'm thinking monologues. Adopt a character, memorise a 1,000 word script, and put all my misplaced confidence to good use - kind of a cross between stand-up and short stories. I'm brain storming at the moment (+1 Unnecessary Marketing Terminology), but post fail state theory blog I did play a spot of Theme Hospital and come across this.

This is 'The New Guide For Theme Hospital', a set of pointers for how to do a speed run of the entire game in one go because you haven't worked out that you need to edit the config file to get the save/load system working. It's fantastic. It starts off traditionally enough...

1. Always build the number of GP office proportional to the other rooms you have.

...but then bangs in a complete curve ball:

2. Never build Toilets, benches or plants or fire extinguishers. They do not help you in anything.

That made me giggle. After that the advice becomes gradually less practical and more philosophical:

8. Once you beat one level just forget about it and focus on the next one and make sure you forget the old completely the new one is much more important now.

9. When all things seem to be against you and it’s in this time that you need to show the world (in this case the Theme Hospital) what you got.

I didn't plan on tying any monologues I produce into games, but I do think the medium's pervasive enough now that I could get on a stage with this concept without switching everyone off. I don't know exactly what (if anything) I'll do with the idea, but I just love this image of the philosopher without a channel funnelling all his worldly wisdom into writing walkthroughs - you could do some really subversive stuff.

Inifinite Ocean: A Philosophical Critique - Part 1

2011-01-15T14:30:00.001Z

Christ. Deconstructing the philosophy of one of the most intelligent, intricately constructed examples of interactive art available has been a mission and a half.

2003's Infinite Ocean is a text-heavy, Myst-style adventure, whose updated version has been doing the rounds recently. It describes itself as a philosophical sci-fi adventure. Now, I read that and I thought to myself, who else do I know who's made a philosophical sci-fi adventure? But I couldn't remember so I figured I'd just check it out.

What follows is one part game review (it's wicked, though I question just how much of a game it is) and four parts discussion of the philosophy contained within, presented broadly in the order experienced in the game. I have no idea if this sort of critique is necessary or interesting; I'm just chuffed there's content out there that's worth the time.

Long story short, play the game first if you're going to.

I hope the validity (or otherwise) of my conclusions speaks for itself, but it's worth noting that underpinning my comments is a lifelong passion for producing and consuming philosophical fiction; and less importantly a First Class Philosophy BA.

SPOILERS.

Atmosphere
The game's opening sections make it clear that Kyratzes has done a good job of delivering both a tense, isolationist feel - despite the limited visual assets - and on conjuring to mind a real sense of wonder at what it would be like to create, converse and ultimately conflict with a true artificial lifeform; and asking what the philosophical implications of such a thing might be. I really enjoy the integration of SGDS' consciousness into the computer systems as random clues, thoughts and errors pop up in the middle of the logs.

ju748a few alt45ed files might be enough/.

These nudges are just strong enough to relate the tale of Jerry et al rebelling against the government; and just subtle enough to allow us to intuitively fill in the blanks. This and the password pattern matching mechanic all rather riff on the defining ability of a sentient intelligence to synthesise information.

tr##d to leave (loadfail) 6$%e holes for y%$

The words on the walls are smart as well as intimidating. It's unclear to me who is supposed to have put them there (seems a funny approach for the military, best guess is it's SGDS' unconscious fear), but it's clear they parallel the voices the author, along with the rest of us, hear around every corner: the implicit demands of society that we don't struggle, don't think, just conform.

So(u)l
The philosophy moves from cursory observation to concrete concern a couple of locked doors down as we begin to get a grip on what the team of scientists have been pursuing, and the repercussions implied. Jerry comments:

Programming is digital thought[...] As God does, man creates worlds from pure thought.

I've chopped bits out of the prose there so as to make the argument more apparent. Jerry's proposing here that programming - as a form of creation with the potential to develop beyond its initial premises (contrasted with literature or music, say, which themselves are unchanged without human interference) - has the potential to create something which qualifies as a lifeform. That mankind can create a being with a soul. This is the first time the question of what exactly an entity must do in order to qualify as 'alive' is raised, and it's also the first broaching of a religious tension. SGDS finds fault with Jerry's perspective:

[Not knowing how they function] makes it easier for [humans] to believe there is some spiritual/non-material component to their being.

It seems to me that at most points in the narrative it is SGDS' views that represent the author's. This is a self-professed piece of philosophy, and as such has sound rational thinking at its very core, and as we're reminded throughout, SGDS is just about as logical a being as it's possible to imagine. The computer's observation here is a sharp one, and a biting criticism of religion, spirituality, and blind faith as a whole. It realises that people are willingly ignorant, and that this lack of understanding is what causes us to invent concepts like god. It goes on to comment that it doesn't understand why it's being treated - by some of the team - like a thing, rather than a living being.

I do not understand why they are treating me the way they are.

The simple answer is ignorance: if you believe in some divine direction in the world, chances are you'll have trouble believing a bunch of silicone can be 'alive'; Jerry thinks it's important to know whether SGDS has a soul, but SGDS understands such a thing is a fiction, that the lines between inanimate and alive are far less objective. The conflict that false beliefs can nurture is made explicit when the scientists describe Major Field later on:

He is so full of hate, hate for all religions but his own.

Play the Game
The way things progress from here has definite The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) vibes, but you quickly come to realise that this is largely a cleverly packaged novella for the Playstation generation. The 'game' is a collection of texts, accessed by completing some occasionally inventive, but mostly cursory puzzles, presented through static - and sometimes disorienting - artwork.

I realise as I write this that perhaps I'm sometimes too harsh on games with less interactive narratives (though see the Tribes write up for a balancing view). I believe it's true that the only games to really embrace the medium do so by putting malleable drama at their centre. However, to criticise Infinite Ocean for not being one of those games - for essentially being a way to trick gamers into reading some philosophical science fiction - is somewhat akin to criticising a great play because it could just as easily have been made as a film. It's so important at this stage in our industry's development to be pioneering new methods of interaction almost at the expense of all else that sometimes it comes at the expense of... well, all else.

Moving forward, characters and plot become a little hard to follow - even some very basic headshots would have aided recall - and the segregation of backstory, philosophy and gameplay results in each being delivered in ever larger, more predictable chunks. By the end of the experience this becomes an almost self-referential joke as the penultimate room abandons distinct art and gameplay in favour of a bank of ten different text terminals.

Fortunately, the strength of the founding concept and the intelligence applied to it keeps your interest, and the implications of the philosophy as well as a drive to get to the bottom of things kept me moving.

Aesthetics
An interesting turn comes with the move from existentialism to aesthetics (the philosophy of art / beauty). It's a topic I'm still getting to grips with, and I found Kyratzes' handling of it traditional, yet thoroughly artistically appealing. At the centre of aesthetics is the question "What is art / beauty, and how is it valuable?"

SGDS answers:

Intellect, perception, understanding - all of these are impossible without imagination[...] [The humans] still categorise art and its creation as useless or trivial[...] And yet their entire community, their entire sense of self, is built upon art.

Or to put it in the in-game words of William Blake:

Poetry fettered fetters the human race.

It feels like a fair observation: imagination underpins new applications of rationality; and just as philosophy can stimulate rationalism, art can stimulate imagination. I do wonder whether it's too strongly put: is Blake's version of the argument really as useful as SGDS' more direct formulation? Infinite Ocean argues that:

To express the ideas contained within a single poem by one of the masters in 'normal speech' would take many pages, if possible at all.

I don't know. I still take issue with the positioning of art as equal or superior in importance to philosophy. This said, I can certainly appreciate the beauty in the author's use of poetry, within his own fiction, to reflect his philosophy, and can identify with Jerry's observation:

We talked about beauty today. The things SGDS said... are so logical, and yet so amazing[...] I suppose the sadness is what I feel when I realise the true nature of our world, when I understand all the mistakes we've made as a species.

This line leads us neatly into Part 2 - a discussion of the game's moral message - coming soon.

Southbank Uni Story Design: The Best Bits of Theory

2010-12-29T12:49:00.001Z

So, my first semester teaching interactive story design on the Game Cultures BA has come to a close. It's been a fun experience, and it's reminded me that writing is an ability unevenly distributed, but that that's no bad thing. With this being a compulsory module on a cross-discipline course, it's inevitable only a handful of the 25 students would have a natural passion for the work. I tried to be up front with everyone, and despite my coming away with a reputation as a harsh marker - best piece of student feedback was "Tom's great, but the difficulty curve may need some balancing" - I seem to have made friends and even, god knows how, developed a bit of a reputation.

There were some fantastic mechanical concepts that arose from the coursework. Watch this space come the new year for a special guest blog from my top student - who is a genuinely intelligent, laugh out loud writer - but in the mean time I've collated a small handful of some of the more far reaching ideas. To be clear, what I'm presenting here are not the best overall game concepts - as we're oft reminded, an idea is only as good as its implementation - rather, these are the individual mechanics that seemed most challenging on a theoretical level: the ideas that might change the way we think about specifically interactive narrative.

The Indictment - The Rorschach Test
by Matthew Davie
Matt's narrative design pitch was based around a psychiatrist's drug induced nightmare world, populated with spectres of his patients. He has to come to terms with how he has helped - or perhaps failed to help - each one of them, therefore getting to the bottom of his own psychosis.

The way he interacts with these patients is through Rorschach tests - the iconically ambiguous images whose interpretation is supposed to indicate a patient's mental state. The idea would be that certain cards could be matched to certain patients, their emotions observed and then manipulated accordingly. A guy hints at his hatred of hospitals? Anger him with a related image and force him to make a mistake.

For me the idea still needs some more pragmatic development, but the theory behind it is one I'm excited by. As long as we rely on dialogue as a method of NPC interaction we tie ourselves into necessarily scripted and linear relationships. The idea of using more real world skills - like empathy and emotional direction - to illicit useful responses is a fascinating one, as some soon to be released projects are already aware.

Falling Through Nightmares - The Voice of the Epsimite
by Joshua Condison
Exploring a psychological battlefield was a bit of a theme this year, and while "...and then he woke up" is something writing courses often try to throw out, personally I was ecstatic there were as many students taking Psychonauts as a direction as there were Far Cry. In all fairness, Josh's take on the subject positioned the nightmare firmly in the real world: every night his central character dreams of falling through a city of his greatest fears, only to wake and discover the Epsimite sleeping pills he's been taking have caused him to carry those fears into reality, the actions he takes in his sleep becoming increasingly violent as the game moves on.

During the day we follow the protagonist through his mundane existence, only instead of controlling him the player now takes on the role of the pills, manifested as a malevolent alter ego. Stacking shelves in the supermarket, a voice in his head encourages him to pop a can into his jacket pocket; things escalate rapidly. These battles of will are represented on screen in a Heavy Rain style, and by having the player embody both the protagonist and antagonist, I think Josh was trying to bring to the screen the character's sense of internal conflict: that on the one hand he needs these pills to function normally; but on the other the reality they buy for him is a thin shade of what they seem to promise.

Floating - The Early Decision Point
by Sarfraz Hussain
Floating is largely your run of the mill dystopia featuring a kick ass girl in the lead - who appears as the header image for this post. It does have an interesting weapon / power up system whereby a mysterious item called the Warpus draws form from ideas and emotions around it: the protagonist's angry outburst is what weaponises it in the first place, and concepts perceived in the game world - eg a set of roller skates - will empower it to take new forms - eg wheeled vehicles. This is, however, ultimately just clever body paint for the pick ups.

What's fascinating about Saf's idea is that early on in the game the protagonist's mentor is taken by a government agent. Actually, no, that's still standard practice. What is interesting is that the player is then given the choice: revenge or forgiveness? His decision will not change the direction of the narrative, but it will subtly alter the nature of the information he's given regarding the government agent he'll spend the rest of the game tracking down. Essentially, choosing revenge will result in texts and characters painting a saintly picture of the man the player has vowed to destroy; choosing to forgive will mean he's rendered the bad guy.

What Saf's trying to get at here, I think, is that many decisions are rashly made, and that any decision can begin to crack when you analyse it with hindsight. When the player reaches the conclusion they're given the opportunity to change their mind, and this seems to suggest that a person is always able to make their own decisions - and that in the context of Saf's dystopian vision it is not so much the government that's to blame for screwing over the people, than it is the people for accepting their government's decisions.

RPGs are often keen to give us many seemingly far reaching decisions to make, but it's rare we're truly forced to live with them - once we've travelled to the next area their impact on us is all but gone. There's something very engaging about the idea of making an entire game reflect on the nature and import of just one, catastrophic mistake.

Stories in Unlikely Places No.2: Tribes: Vengeance

2010-12-19T03:18:00.005Z

Tribes: Vengeance is one of the most subtly subversive multiplayer games ever made. Not a lot of people know that.

This is the second in a series of posts aimed at celebrating and championing games which don't just further the art of interactive narrative design, but do so either from unexpected places against unlikely odds, or despite their continuing obscurity. No serious spoilers.

Released in 2004, Tribes: Vengeance was a prequel, the third game in a series that was itself a spin off of Dynamix' mech-game, Earthsiege. Incidentally, that series simultaneously demonstrates that our industry is ridiculous, and constantly, brilliantly evolving. It goes...

Metaltech: Earthsiege
Earthsiege 2
Starsiege
Starsiege: Tribes
Tribes 2
Tribes: Vengenace.

I'd buy Vengeance: Metaltech any day.

But back to the point. 1998's Tribes was startlingly advanced in every sense other than the narrative one. It was a pre-1942 Battefield; the game that did huge outdoor arenas, massive player counts, and on-foot vs vehicle teamplay before anyone else had graduated beyond Quake deathmatch. It was a technical and design marvel.

But it still centered around blowing shit up.

In the hands of a pre-Bioshock Irrational - known at the time for System Shock 2 and Freedom Force - Vengeance still centered around blowing shit up, but the studio's masterstroke was to bother explaining why. With Tribes, Irrational proved beyond all doubt their ability to deliver in whatever genre they set their sights on - their vision of online carnage more than lives up to the series precedent and yet they've never returned to it - but it was the blindside of the singleplayer campaign that quietly redefined the playing field.

Vengeance pits you as five different characters on opposing sides of a space cold war, separated by generations. There are two timelines, set 20 years apart, and you play them in parallel, so the events occurring in the past give you new insight on what's going on in the present. You are simultaneously the Imperial Princess captured by the tribals, and the daughter she's yet to give birth to. The story sees the characters fall in and out of love, make and avenge any number of murders, and instigate and quell all out war.

Frankly, the writing isn't as sharp as we've rightly come to expect half a decade later:

VICTORIA

Just get on with it, you tribal dog.

DANIEL

Woof.

That's probably the best line in the first half hour. No, In case you can't tell, Vengeance stands out for me for its epic, multi-protagonist narrative structure.

We spend a lot of times in games writing bemoaning the aping of cinema; we should be our own medium with our own strengths and weaknesses. What I think a lot of games writing could learn from is dramatic structure. How often do you play an action game whose story isn't realtime? It's rare to see so much as 'Two months later...' let alone a game as bold as Vengeance. It's not that realtime is always bad, it's just indicative of a general lack of faith that we rarely try anything better suited to telling a story. Another question: how often do you play a game confident enough in its storytelling that it will keep you in the dark about huge portions of its narrative until it deems fit to bring you into the loop? Cinema has these tricks down pat, but we're still learning how to do them. Irrational pulled it off ages ago.

In Vengeance you play as both mother and daughter, and the hindsight provided by the one character renders seemingly righteous actions by the other as tragedy. And right there, there's the reason Vengeance is special: it's a tragedy. That shouldn't be a rarity, but it is. This is a game about love, and politics, and perspectivism, and hatred. It's a game which is entirely linear not because it lacks narrative ambition, but because this enables it to tell an intricately crafted story of a fashion I'd argue Bioshock never even approached. It's a game assured enough to let your motivations in the present only be explained later by your own actions in the past. Even Rockstar - in Red Dead Redemption - look amateur in their attempts at the same.

But there's something else. Let's look at the story premise again, because it's so obvious, and so smart, as to be almost invisible.

The Tribes series - and online shooters in general - have always been about people fighting one another for no real reason. How do you make a story out of that? Simple. Irrational's story is about how people fight one another for no reason. And they prove that to you. In gradual, tragic detail.

Perhaps that Vengeance was a multiplayer game whose strongest asset was its elaborate, story driven tutorial was what damned it to the insulting sales and mass exodus of players and publisher immediately following release. Perhaps Vengeance's singleplayer didn't redefine storytelling in the same way the original game did multiplayer. But it should have done.

This is a game which, if any ever did, deserves another look while its gameplay remains palatable. Because unlike its visuals, its story is timeliness.

Buy Tribes Vengeance at Amazon.co.uk
Buy Tribes Vengeance at Amazon.com

The Theory Behind In-Game Failure

2010-12-09T21:20:00.003Z

As a topic for theory, failure states aren't new. If you're providing the player a challenge, the traditional way to handle his failure to live up to that challenge is a

GAME OVER,

followed by a discretionary amount of replaying from the last checkpoint. To a certain degree I'm sold on this concept. Particularly in these days of casual, persistent and console gaming, developers are always seeking ways to avoid those ugly words,

GAME OVER,

and allow the player to proceed without breaking the fiction (see my discussion on Bioshock's Vita-Chambers). Sometimes this cuts short your options: if you're escorting an NPC how do you handle that NPC's potential death? Invulnerability? Branching story lines? Massive text redundancy?! Sometimes a good old fashioned

GAME OVER

is all you need.

On the flip side, I love games that incorporate player failure not just into their fiction, but into their gameplay. In fact I think they're far more rewarding experiences. I believe this on the basis that its not just challenge that is central to good drama, but failure. With that in mind, in order for failure states to be meaningful they need to be incorporated into the both the game's fiction and, more importantly, the world of the game's mechanics.

I see three ways in which failure is modelled:

1. Game over
2. Forced fails
3. Gameplay incorporated

Game over (yeah, line breaking for 'game over' is getting annoying now) definitely qualifies as a failure, but in most cases it's mechanically unrelated to everything else in the game. You step back in time and turn that failure into a success in order for the narrative and interaction to continue.

Forced fails are when the story demands the character strike out, and the game forces the player to embody this. There's a time and a place for this, but clearly as soon as you're scripting player action to reflect the story, rather than the other way around, you've given up a core tenet of interactive narrative. In both game over and forced fail, failure acts as a barrier to interaction rather than a part of it.

The better approach, as I see it, is the smaller scale stuff that's handled by the game mechanics. That's things like getting shot, taking too long, or making poor decisions. These are things which, combined, might lead to a Game over, but which can usually be taken on the chin. I played a lot of RTS and management games when I was a kid, and I think one of the appeals of those genres is that game over is far rarer than in action games, and that failure is Incorporated into the flow. Messing up in Theme Hospital doesn't make the level unplayable; you don't have to redo the half hour since the last check point. What it means is having to hire new specialists. What it means is having to stare at the monstrosity of a Bloaty Head treatment machine you just built when all your patients are dying of Broken Hearts. What it means is being punished proportionately, in a way that's cohesive with the fiction and the game structure, and in a way that forces you to work harder to overcome your self-wrought challenges.

What it arguably means is a far truer interpretation of interactive drama.

Of course, there remain sticking points. How do we tell a story which revolves entirely around a protagonist's failure, but keep the player motivated? How do we tie this approach not just into the gameplay, but more thoroughly into a complex narrative?

I'm going to go play Theme Hospital (well, its open source clone) and think about it some more.

Environmental Narrative Panel: Vid, Write Up & a Note on Subliminal Signposting

2010-12-01T14:12:00.003Z

Last week's panel discussion on environmental narrative went well. We had a full house (though didn't stretch to standing room only like last year), no one shouted or cried, and I even got a word in edgewise.

I also met Joel (aka Harbour Master), who was sportsman-like enough to train it into London, say hello in the pub, and then beetle home and write the whole event up practically before I'd sobered up. I was aiming to draw my own conclusions from the evening, but frankly he's done it for me.

Read about the event over at Electron Dance.
Watch my 30 min talk in low-res shakey-vision
- Courtesy of LSBU student, Gary Howard

For my tuppence worth there are a couple of topics I'd like to pick up on.

A Writer Writes Across the Board

The talk, and Joel's write up, begin with a quote from Jim:

“Which of you are writers or want to be writers?” Many hands went up, including mine.
“How many of you want to be writers for games only?” Only a few hands survived.
“Don't limit yourselves.”

It's a small thing, but since it was so centre stage I wanted to chime in: I don't think you need to write in different disciplines to be a good writer.

I'm sure it can help. I'd be surprised if there were many writers who didn't want to write in different disciplines. But if you love just one medium I don't see any good reason to pursue any other. Unlike the other writers on the panel, I didn't come into games from another industry: games are what I write. Certainly I'm interested in pursuing prose fiction, but if it came down to it, interactive narrative is what really floats my boat. That's no bad thing.

The Validity of Thematics & Subliminal Story Telling

I kind of abused the topic to my own ends so that I could discuss tying narrative / artistic meaning into gameplay, but Jim and Rhianna very much went down the more solid "the environment art can tell a story" route. Question time at the end raised an important query:

"One member of the audience suggested that all of this “environmental narrative” simply washes over the player, that as it is not part of the actual gameplay, it ceases to be important. The clever subtext is all but lost."

Now this riffs on something I discussed in class a few weeks ago: the questioning of the validity behind thematics. McKee says:

"An IMAGE SYSTEM is a strategy of motifs, a category of imagery embedded in the film that repeats in sight and sound from beginning to end with persistence and great variation, but with equally great subtlety, as a subliminal communication to increase the depth and complexity of aesthetic emotion."

In English this means: "Use symbolism and repetition to engage the audience on another level." This is precisely what environmental narrative often is, and it's a technique that's common to all artistic expression I can think of. But does it just pass us by?

Two examples spring to mind. The first is games' frequent use of signposting. In most titles, a load zone is indicated by a particular piece of art. It might be a door with a release valve; it might be a yellow arrow on a corridor wall. The point is, when you see that sign I don't think there's a logical process in your head which goes: "This sign means there's a load zone, therefore I won't go this way until I've done everything here." I think you just learn by habit (the same way you train an animal) and avoid that door.

The second example is one Jim gave at the talk.

In the image above - with the visible pier supports and the beached ships - the environmental narrative is telling us that the Combine - Half Life 2's big bad guys - are so powerful that they've dried up entire seas. Great. Problem is I never would have picked up on that in a million years when I was playing through. I'm sure some people would, but I'm sure plenty are like me.

If that's the case, how much of our (writers across all mediums) thematic work is actually adding to the fiction, and how much of it is just creative types wanting to feel clever? The scary word is 'subliminal'. While the load zone example above would seem to support the idea that some simple things can be understood subconsciously, 'subliminal' itself - despite the popular controversy around its use in advertising - quite literally means below the senses, ie undetectable by the human mind on any level.

Clearly Half Life, Bioshock et al are better for not being set in grey corridors. But I suppose my question is just how much of that time and effort to weave complex stories into shooters is wasted below the senses; and don't games like Hitman make greater use of these techniques by having the nature of the environment actually feedback into gameplay in more ways than just waist high cover?

Why Zombies as a Genre Are Here to Stay

2010-11-29T16:09:00.001Z

I heart zombies. Not just in a geeky, B-movie kind of a way (though props to Zombi 2), and not just from the perspective of a horror video game writer (because I don't really consider myself that) - but mostly because for any kind of writer it's a premise overloaded with potential for character exploration.

Unlike World War 2 or modern combat or comic books or Westerns, Zombie fiction in both cinematic and interactive entertainment is a stayer. This is why.

The image above - beyond any excuse to picture Milla - represents everything that people get wrong about developing a zombie fiction. Sci-fi environs, super ninja bitches, mad scientists... Resident Evil (by turn both the games and the films) misses the point.

I've never particularly had any desire to write horror as a profession. Before the Penumbra games it's not something I'd ever even attempted. It's always been a genre close to my heart, though, for one reason: it puts human nature under the microscope. To some degree, perhaps, that's what all good fiction does. But the reason that stories like Alien, The Thing and Dead Ringers are truly great horrors is that they take real, everyday characters - even when those characters are in fantastic circumstances - and put them under pressure. In GCSE chemistry, if you want to learn about a particular substance you put it to extremes: you heat it, or you cool it, or you spin it around really really really fast until it's all dizzy. Then you wait and see what happens.

Good horror - particularly zombie horror - works the same way. You take ordinary people, expose them to extreme pressure, and see if they wind up killing one another. Alien argues that everyone has different potential: that the cute blonde tomboy hides cowardice that will overrule even self-preservation; and that the hero of the story might actually have tits. The Thing shows us that rational human doubt can overpower anything; even a strong friendship.

Sometimes film - and often games - get this wrong. Games are great at developing tension and fear. Better, I'd argue, than any other medium. But how often does a zombie game use this to explore themes within its characters? We all know Dead State is heading in the right direction, and we're probably familiar with Dead Rising's blatant Romero-esque critique of consumerism, but how often do we go beyond that?

As a genre, zombies have only been around for a few decades. The concept originated with Voodoo-related catatonia, and Romero and his ilk imported it to Hollywood in the 60s. This means that the five year fad that began with Stubbs the Zombie and L4D (a game which captures the rumour mill and camaraderie, but none of the suspicion or character progression) really marks the first time that zombies have truly been road-tested on an interactive level. What zombies allow us to do as writers is to introduce a whole host of useful mechanics - mechanics zombie games often exclude - and to have these feedback in unique ways on the story:
- Where did the outbreak come from (room for government conspiracy and social critique)?
- What do you do when you / someone else gets infected?
- How do you treat other survivors when they might be your best survival tool or your greatest threat?
- What happens to morality in a world where violence is around every corner?
- How quickly and in what ways do society's rules break down?
- What is there to pursue beyond survival in a world beyond the brink of revival?
- What rights do the zombies themselves have?
- Without a social structure to tell you what to do, what happens when people have to think for themselves for the first time in their lives?
- Where is your god now?
- Is a katana really the best weapon?

Zombies are uniquely interesting for precisely these topics. You'd be hard pressed to find a good Z fiction that didn't centre on at least one of these ideas.

As both a writer and a consumer, I'm fascinated more than anything else by humanity and by honest (even when scary) appraisals of it. I'd argue that zombie games provide us that opportunity and much more beside; any time someone says to me that zombies are just the latest fad, I figure they've been playing too much Resident Evil.

Unlike WW2, or Tolkien, or Vietnam, zombies always have new places to go; but what they tell us about ourselves should always be a little too close to home.

4 More Free Web-games...

2010-11-23T17:29:00.003Z

...because free web-games generate hits. And also because, just like commercial release, or XBLA, or the AppStore, there's a shit load of shit obscuring the good stuff. In short, I've played a lot of shit so you don't have to.

This is a follow up to the 'Why free is the Future' post I put up an indiscernible amount of time ago, and these are the games that basically made the grade but I didn't have time to include. They're still guaranteed better than 95% of the stuff out there, and I'm going to try to be more critical this time.

It never ceases to amaze me how many truly talented programmers and artists there are out there who're content to turn out clones.

The Company of Myself

The Company of Myself is a pretty trad make-copies-of-yourself-to-complete-the-game game (though I love that we're now inventive enough with our mechanics that that can be a genre). It combines that mechanic, though, with a very personal story. It's not a fresh perspective - guy loses girl, moans a bit - but it's one that, while pervasive, will never be less than relevant. Braid-lite, maybe.

Little Wheel

A bit like Loodon, Little Wheel is perhaps stronger in its aesthetics than its gameplay (which is simplistic point & click). It's beautiful, and the narrative is touching in a self-consciously-designed-to-tweak-the-emotions-of-a-broad-audience, Disney / Pixar kind of a way. but then the fact I'm even making those comparisons can't be a bad sign. Not truly interactive, but worth a crack.

Time Kufc

Yeah. This one's kinda fucked up. Hence the oh-so-clever name. There are a lot of games that play with the idea of time travel as a gameplay mechanic these days, but for me Time Kufc remains the game which has most coherently tied that mechanic into the narrative. A standard platformer with rewind / restart mechanics, you navigate a seemingly endless labyrinth in pursuit of... well... yourself, I guess. Past and future incarnations of yourself guide or taunt you, and the game's unnerving in a Cactus kind of a way, without entirely abandoning comprehension.

Gateway II

I can't claim the puzzles in this one don't have their flaws, but it's worth persevering and resorting to a walkthrough if necessary. You guide a a box-like character through a series of rooms, entering and existing what appear to be different streams of reality. There's a lost-girl plot in there somewhere, but all told this reeks of imperfect implementation of an ambitious idea that winds up thoroughly playable.

Why Free is the Future: 5 Must Play Free Games

2010-11-19T18:52:00.003Z

I was giving an interview to a journo from Moviescope magazine today, for a piece he was putting together on the interplay between interactive entrainment and film. His controversy-generation angle (because, seriously, sometimes we all need one) was "Are games Film 2.0?". Clearly the answer's 'no' - games may have taken some of film's audience, but they never will nor should replace any other industry. However, I think one of the insights he found most interesting was my stressing that just as cinema has Hollywood vs art film, games have AAA vs indie scenes. It's something even studio execs within our industry often fail to recognise.

A crucial corner of that scene, naturally, are products like Braid, and Darwinia, and Limbo. It's indescribably fantastic that important, artistic, independent games can now turn a profit for the first time in our industry's history. Those games wouldn't exist, however, were it not for their short, free, web-based cousins blazing the frontiers.

Let's celebrate that.

Loondon

A simple, olde worlde take on Britain, and a tale of carnival freak redemption, this point & click is simple, short, but wears its heart endearingly upon its sleeve.

Take a Walk

A snail's pace Canabalt, the music stops jarringly every time you screw up, reinforcing the value of that often overlooked element of video game design.

Don't Shit Your Pants

Interesting stuff can sometimes be satirical, and satirical stuff doesn't always avoid toilet humour. 'Don't Shit Your Pants' concerns itself with nothing else, but is nonetheless a very smart take on the text adventure. A 'survival horror game' which sees the player standing outside the loo door and having to type his way to the bog while avoiding the titular, the game successfully rips trad IF for its often ludicrous inaccessibility by making something so mundane seem quite such a challenge.

I Can Hold My Breath Forever

An underwater platformer that pits your desire to explore against a tight oxygen countdown, this is a touching tale of with predictably a slightly nonsensical ending that I'd interpret as commenting on the blind draw of true friendship.

Aether

Aether is one of the earlier projects from the professional indie darlings behind Super Meat Boy. It's a rambling discussion of childhood seen through the cartoon perspective of a child exploring the universe on the back of a giant sling-shotting blob thing. Of course it is.

London Writing Panel Appearence: Interactive Story Telling for an Interactive Medium

2010-11-12T14:25:00.001Z

The IGDA has just announced a new games writing panel that's going to be held in London the week after next. It's going to star some of my big name games writing mates and - less spectacularly - me. Official blurb at the bottom of the post, my unofficial blurb immediately below.

Environmental Narrative: Interactive Storytelling for an Interactive Medium is kind of a sequel to a talk we - Jim Swallow (Deux Ex 3), Rhianna Pratchett (Overlord), Andy Walsh (Prince of Persia) and I - turned out last year. Despite the atrocious press photo from the event that's the header for this post (I'm the one with the terrible hair and evil eyes yammering away while everyone else stops and stares in disbelief), the thing went well, and we're back. It was rammed last time around - a mixed audience of games students, professional writers from other mediums, and developers in other disciplines - and I'd argue the pub trip afterwards is a great networking opportunity.

It's being held the evening of 23rd November at London South Bank University. Incidentally, it was this event last year that brought me to the attention of the Game Cultures BA guys at LSBU and landed me my current lecturing job.

Hope you're able to make it, and if you are rocking up do drop me a note beforehand and come grab me in the pub - be good to put some faces to some names.

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http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=166138263406405

Time: 23 November · 19:00 - 21:00
Location: Keyworth Theatre B, Keyworth Building, London South Bank University
Keyworth Street (http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/about/maps.shtml) easiest tube is elephant and castle. Take South Bank University exit
London, United Kingdom

Environmental Narrative: Interactive Story Telling for an Interactive Medium
Hosted by LSBU's BA (Hons) Game Cultures course

Following last year's packed event, the IGDA London Chapter and IGDA's Writing SIG will be presenting a talk at London South Bank University on the evening of Tuesday 23rd November. A panel composed of well-established videogames experts will be focusing on how AI and environment can tell story in games.

Entry will be free and the panel will be followed by both a formal Q&A session and an informal trip to the pub. We hope you can join us.

The panel will be comprised of experienced games writers -

Tom Jubert (Driver: San Francisco , The Penumbra series)
Rhianna Pratchett (Overlord, Heavenly Sword)
James Swallow (Deus Ex Human Revolution, Battlestar Galactica)
Andrew S. Walsh (Bodycount, Prince of Persia )

Die2Nite: Free Keys for the New Web-Based Zombie MMO

2010-11-11T19:45:00.002Z

I was contacted a little while after posting that fascinating interview with Zombie / RPG hero, Brian Mitsoda, by someone else with a Zombie RPG. Die2Nite is developed by French outfit, MotionTwin, and began life at http://www.hordes.fr/

The French iteration has been running for a while, and had some positive write ups. I've not gone too far into it yet, but the core mechanic seems broadly familiar: spend action points in the text and image driven web interface, develop your character and equipment, and await the inevitable zombie onslaught that arrives at midnight. Each online shard only houses 40 players, which is a conceit that appeals to me - tighter games with the ending in sight, without losing the co-operative progression of an MMO.

So, I've got a bunch of beta keys to give away. For some reason, the guys at Motion Twin think I have enough readers to actually shift ten keys!) First come first serve, just drop a note into the comments telling me why you'd survive in the zombie apocalypse when everyone around you is muttering disconcerting things about brains, and either include your email address or drop me a mail to the usual place if you'd rather not publish it.

I'll be interested to delve into the game more once I'm not quite so busy - will it be a dramatic, multiplayer experience, or another shallow time sink?

Ah well, at least it's got zombies.