I have a friend who joked that she would fire anybody who showed up at work on their first day and set up all their action figures! I thought that was pretty funny until I worked with a guy who spent most of his first couple of days putting up wall shelves and lining up regiments of Star Wars Micro Machines. He was a nice guy, but made a terrible first impression. At work, I have a pretty sparse collection of action figures: some Hokuto No Ken gachapons that my friend in Japan got me, a Dragon Quest Slime Soda that my ex-cubemate brought back from the Tokyo Game Show, and a few Mario figures that encourage me to always remember my roots as a game player as well as a designer. I also have a small shelf next to my desk which has an assortment of books, DVD’s, and games which I frequently use for reference and inspiration. When I walk around the office to talk to other coworkers, I always take a quick look at what they have on their shelf. One of the most fascinating shelves is an animator at the end of my row who has pretty much nothing except for CostCo sized boxes of Sweet & Low and Saltines. Maybe this is some delicacy I’m not aware of yet!

I decided to go around work and my Outlook Inbox to see what other people have on their shelves and why! I’ll start with myself. I have the three Lord of the Rings special extended version DVD box sets. I frequently listen to the various commentary tracks because they’re a wealth of information on how the creative process can effectively work within the realities of the production process on a large scale. I also have the Metal Gear Solid VR Missions guide because it has wonderful maps of just about every combat setup you can possibly imagine.

• Gal (lead animator) – “I have the Alien DVD on my desk right now… always reminds me that many times it is better to show less and let the viewers imagination fill the gaps.”
• Grace (designer) – “I had some left over Amazon credits and just got this book called ‘Artwork: Seeing Inside the Creative Process’ by ivan Vartanian because I like seeing how other people deal with creative problems and processes.”
• Jenny (lead programmer) – “The book would be ‘the Diamond age’ by Neal Stephenson and the reason would be that a scared little girl can be whoever she wants to be; that you are who you make yourself.”
• James (concept artist) - “‘The Complete Christmas Card Art of Eyvind Earle’. Rarely do you get such an in depth look at the evolution of an artist over his career. not only that, but the works inside are sometimes the only thing that fed his family through the great depression. He designed the book himself, chose the paper and cover stocks, and created a limited print run. It’s one of my prized possessions.”
• Mat (lead designer) – “‘Mastering Pac-Man’ by ken Uston. My brother gave it to me as a joke, but I love it and find the book rather amusing and funny!”
• Lee (art director) – “I actually keep a book on my desk called ‘Handbook of Diseases of the Rectum’. I’ve taken this book to every “art” job I’ve ever had. It was a gift from a friend in high school, who bought it at a used book store (it’s from the ’50′s). I keep it at my desk to remind me to not take myself too seriously, and also why I became an artist — which wasn’t to climb a corporate ladder or be too “professional”.”
• Casey (creative director) – “I have Scott Roger’s Level Up! on my shelf as a teaching reference and I have a bunch of Miyazaki art books for creative inspiration, to remember to use inspiration from my childhood since he is big on that.”
• Alex (senior designer) – “A sealed, “big box” copy of Daikatana sits on my desk. It’s a constant reminder to be a humble designer who listens to others.”
• Scott (Imagineer) – “‘Game Feel: A Game Designer’s Guide to Virtual Sensation’ by Steve Swink. When writing, I often read chapters from other books for reference and to provide inspiration. Swink’s book currently sits on my desk because it touches on some topics I’m writing about and bears some resemblance to my own book with its charming hand drawn illustrations. Out of all of the books I own, I consider it a game designer’s design book – one that’s important to have on your shelf. It’s not a light read, but if you want to dive into a single topic, it’s worth taking a look at.”
• Brian (producer) - “Peter Gabriel’s ‘Passion’, as it takes classic sources, and reinterprets them in an original way, making a new creation appropriate to being a movie soundtrack and approachable to its audience. Square and Dream Factory’s Tobal 1&2; the first game was the first I saw to use z-depth strategy effectively in a fighter, with a completely solid rock-paper-scissors form of striking/grappling resolution. It seemed perfect. The second game showed me that if designers are willing to take chances, there is still room for improvement even when something seems perfect.”
• Freddie (senior artist) – “I have the Minimum Essential Architecture Library edition on architect Steven Holl. He was (and till is) someone I look to for inspiration; I felt a connection to his work during my time at Cal, seemingly striving for a similar type of expression through form, except he does it better.”

What’s on your shelf?

TIME IS A CONSTANT ENEMY: level design is incredibly time consuming. It’s one of the few aspects of design that spans the entire development process from early prototyping to closing out final bugs! Time is an enemy to both design and art. Design is under pressure to rapidly create playable block mesh that can be handed off to art as soon as possible. However, depending on the maturity of the technology, a lot of early block mesh / prototype time may be spent actually getting the tools to work rather than producing production-ready work. The timeliness of handing off block mesh is all dependent on the level of visual fidelity the game is aiming for. Art has a limited amount of time to reach that target and needs the level design to be final since changes become more expensive the further along the environment art gets.

THE GAME IS MISSING IMPORTANT GAMEPLAY FEATURES: most level designs start well before gameplay mechanics are available to populate them. This leads to rework (a very painful process once level art has already begun) or mechanics being shoehorned into areas where they don’t work very well. In most cases, gameplay mechanics work best in a block mesh environment. If a mechanic is added, removed, or modified, it directly impacts art due to the fact that the environment artist may already be working on an area that’s still going through design iterations in relation to a given mechanic or feature.

BLOCK MESH CAN BE VAGUE AND TOO RIGID: well thought out level themes and stacks of concept art can’t always clarify the unruly, abstract appearance of block mesh. Artists have to take this tangle of collision primitives, proxies, and trigger volumes and make something beautiful and cohesive out of them! Artists will generally want the freedom to push and pull these spaces. However, a good block mesh is really the best representation of the collision that works for the gameplay, so many of these spaces can’t be changed too radically. This is further compounded by distances necessary for gameplay pacing as well as allowances for the movement of the game camera. The camera I’m currently dealing with requires a 5 meter distance away from the wall to allow for the gimbal to freely move around the character. This directly affects the scale of any area the player can get into: rooms, hallways, platforms, pits, elevators, etc.

BLOCK MESH CAN BE HARD TO GROUND: early platformers like Mario and Sonic had floating platforms (both static and moving) all over the place. The level designers on these games weren’t insane, they were staying true to the established conventions of the genre while dealing with the restrictions of the hardware: screen resolution, memory, level size, etc. Video games have come a long way since those days in relation to graphics, sound, and control, but designers and artists butt heads over traditional gameplay elements that are still fun, but difficult for the artist to ground. Floating platforms need to be attached to something. Moving platforms need to fit into a mechanism that defines their movement. All of these grounding elements require polygons, textures, and real estate, so there is seldom a case where a designer can just throw something in a level to improve the gameplay and not impact the artist.

BE PREPARED TO THROW AWAY A LOT OF WORK: most level designs go through at least two major revisions (or more) before a final layout is agreed upon. In the process of reaching agreement, some or all of a layout may be completely reworked to adjust to changing requirements based on gameplay or production considerations. Unfortunately for art, they may have to spend a considerable amount of time creating assets for the “bad” layout and then have to scrap week’s worth of work to make adjustments for the “good” layout!

THERE’S JUST TOO MUCH TO DO: compared to other aspects of design, level design goes through the most varied forms of iteration: block mesh, player-metrics, gameplay mechanics, player path, item population, enemy population, combat design, gameplay progression, tutorial placement, alternate paths, event planning, collision refinement, art refinement, and quality assurance testing just to name a few. Some of these iteration passes happen exclusively while others have to happen at the same time.

Good level design is a mix of architectural successes / failures based on imagination, a ton of iterations, and access to the right tools and features at an early stage. Level designers needs to be cognizant of the fact that level artists want to make the game look beautiful while maintaining all this wonderful gameplay. Level artists need to be given the time to embrace compromise without falling into the trap of being over-scheduled. SO, what can be done about any of this? At the risk of sounding like a know-it-all, I have a few thoughts…

Project managers need to look at level design as a process that occurs over the lifetime of a project and not just a few weeks at the start of a level kickoff. The rush to get block mesh into art should be tempered by the availability of the gameplay mechanics necessary to populate it. If the level is not playable in something close to an alpha form, don’t hand the entire thing off to environment artists! Level design is not an all or nothing situation; hand off the parts that are playable.

The workflow between level designers and environmental artists needs to run more in parallel. While designers are working on block mesh, artists should be working on conceptual forms of the environment in order to test out composition and scale. Perhaps some companies already do this, but the majority still seem to fall back on the traditional model of creating concept art, waiting for block mesh hand off, and then straining the process by trying to mold the block mesh into the concept art. Having all three of these processes run in parallel seems like a far more sane solution with collaboration between departments happening at a much earlier stage!

When I was a kid, I briefly worked a telephone sales job where I had to cold call people and try and sell them a magazine subscription to some weird Amway-style catalog. It was a very tough sale compounded by the fact that a coked-up manager patrolled the floor to ensure that we read off of a preprepared script. “Hi, my name is ______ and I’m presenting you with a unique opportunity that could change your life!” The only thing worse than getting hung up on or yelled at for interrupting dinner was the lame incentives in place for success. If we actually managed to make a sale, we got to go over to a locked storage room and pick one item out of an Aladdin’s cave full of giant-size candy bars. That’s right. Minimum wage and the promise of a giant-sized Twix bar. Pitching a video game is essentially the same experience!

First, put together a plan for the pitch. This is the preprepared script. Have your documentation, supporting materials (concept art, videos, free t-shirts, etc.), and script (what you’re going to say and who’s going to say it) ready long before you start making phone calls. Practice your pitch in front of people who are going to give you frank, honest criticism and revise the pitch with the intention of making it as concise and interesting as possible. During my time at Crystal Dynamics, one of the pitches to our parent company Eidos went through months of revisions and refinements before it was presented.

Next, you have to make a connection: a friend, a friend of a friend, an ex-coworker, somebody you met while you were drunk at E3, or even somebody who you don’t know at all with the hope that your name, company, or idea will somehow resonate enough to initiate some sort of interest. Keep in mind that the person you’re contacting won’t always be the person who makes the final decision on whether you’re idea is green-lit or not, but treat everybody with equal importance. Also be very careful that you don’t damage any part of your relationship with a connection. It’s a relatively small industry and everybody talks!

There are roughly three types of pitch environments: a pitch at a their place (publisher, venture capital partnership, etc.), a pitch at your own place, or a pitch-fest at a convention or trade show. Pitching your game at their place is probably the most ideal situation despite the fact that you will probably have to go through the process multiple times with different groups of people as you get closer to the person who will make the decision. At one publisher, I pitched my heart out to some guy who turned out to be an employee’s friend visiting for the day. That was a little weird! Also keep in mind that the pitch is on your dime, so don’t be frustrated by repeat visits to companies that are hundreds of miles away. Pitching the game at your place can add a certain comfort level, but can also affect a potential investor’s opinion of your ability to produce a game based on your surroundings. At one company I worked at, the company next door would “hire” us to make their company look bigger when investors came through! On several occasions, we had an executive producer from a publisher stop by for us to pitch to him, but all he really wanted was the free lunch that we would take him out to. Lastly, you can pitch your game at a trade show. This is a real mixed bag depending on when you pitch because a lot of these companies will line up a ton of pitches during this time and you may end up pitching to a room of people who are hung over or want to rush you so that they can get to the next pitch.

When it comes time to pitch the game, try and get some idea of who will be at the pitch. Look up their bios on LinkedIn to get an idea of their background and consider adjusting the pitch slightly depending on who you’re talking to. For example, a pitch to a group of game designers should probably focus more on core gameplay mechanics, tools, and design process rather than budget and marketing possibilities. If you can’t find information beforehand on who you’re talking to, make proper introductions when you get to the meeting and carefully look at business cards before putting them in your pocket / wallet (a no-no in Japan) or placing them on the table in front of you in relation to the person it came from. The above cartoon actually happened during a pitch where a developer came in with a follow-up project to a title that had been plagued with bad design. Naturally, as designers, we asked him about their design process on projects going forward in order to prevent similar problems. Unfortunately for him, he neglected to find out who we were before the meeting started and his answer didn’t inspire a lot of confidence! DOH!

Finally, you need to strike a good balance of providing information while giving your audience enough leeway to inject their own questions and opinions which you can respond to in a constructive manner. You don’t want a pitch where you finish talking and everybody is quiet, asleep, or texting away on their phones! When you’re done with your pitch, always let them know that you’re done and ask for further questions. You’ll get some great questions and some not-so-great questions depending on who you’re pitching to. Either way, the trick is to make the meeting feel participatory for everybody involved!

CRYSTAL DYNAMICS 2006 – temperamental security, sketchy bathrooms, and the occasional employee with no concept of teamwork outside of collecting a paycheck! The company used to occupy an older, 1970′s style building on Willow Road in Menlo Park, California. It was sort of a cross between a fraternity house and a modern church with a full kitchen, a fireplace den with fake wood panel walls, and a patio with a barbecue in the back. The “flood” depicted in this comic was just one of many strange events that plagued the building. During the last month of beta on Tomb Raider Legend, a blackout hit the area which shut down the building for over a week. It’s the only time I’ve ever been on a project where a submission was delayed by an “act of God”!

Back in 1994, I stayed at the Sahara when I went to my first and only CES (the first E3 was in 1995). Despite the boom in home console and arcade business, there was no dedicated convention for video game publishers and developers, so the winter and summer CES (in Chicago) were the only outlets for consumers and buyers to get a look at the latest hardware and software.  1994 was an awesome year! It marked the debut of Super Metroid (with the Super Metroid dancers!), the original PlayStation (a CD hardware add-on for the Super Nintendo), and Virtua Fighter (WTF are polygons?!) to name just a few cool things that you would have seen on the floor! Off the floor, the hotel was a who’s who of the old skool gaming industry as well as a surreal collection of porn stars who were in town for the Adult Entertainment Expo which was held at the same time! Nothing quite matches the excellence of having a convention in Las Vegas, so it was a bit of a letdown when the first E3 in 1995 left the glitz and tawdriness of the Vegas Strip for the urban wasteland of downtown Los Angeles. It was even worse when it took a sweaty detour into Atlanta for a couple of years!

SO, what should a game designer do at E3?

• First, if you’ve never been before, you should definitely go even if I am making it seem like its best days are long behind it. GDC is perhaps a better place to see all your industry friends, but E3 is where the buzz is for new games and hardware! I still remember getting my hands on a PlayStation for the first time and playing Warhawk and Tekken or getting a blinding headache from playing Waterworld on the Nintendo Virtual Boy!
• If you’re a gainfully employed designer, you should take the opportunity to do some research on the competition. Look at games that are in the same genre as your game and take notes on controls, game mechanics, presentation, character development, combat, level design, etc. In 1996, I was a level designer on a game called Apocalypse that was being published by Activision. We were in for a huge shock when ASC Entertainment’s One was shown next to us in the PlayStation booth. The games were nearly identical!
• If you have a game on the show floor, never forgo an opportunity to work the booth and demonstrate your game to whoever stops by. Typically, product managers from your publisher will line up various sellers and representatives for all three days, but all sorts of other random people will show up to take a look at your game. When I was working on Pac-Man World 20th Anniversary, I conducted an informal poll of everyone who came by to see if they liked the new sounds in the game or the classic Pac-Man sounds. I was having an argument with my producer over this issue (he wanted all new sounds and I wanted a mix of old and new) and my poll paid off big time when an EGM writer came by and made it an official poll that was printed alongside their preview for the game! Oh, and I won that argument! :)

• Booth babes are great to look at, but they mostly do a lousy job of demo’ing games. When you go to play a game, look for the game being demo’ed by people like yourself. There’s a good chance that these are some of the developers of the game, so it’s a great opportunity to network and talk to some of the people who worked on some of your favorite games! Also, keep on the lookout for company events, mixers, and parties. These are also great opportunities for networking, free food, and some great music if you’re lucky! If you show up later at big events, you’ll have an easier time getting since most of the distinguished guests (various management, marketers, and retail people) tend to turn in early because they have a lot of meetings the next day!

• “What game are you working on?” – Most of the time my current project hasn’t been announced, so I can’t tell them. At this point, the students try to employ the Mustafa rule of three questions with little success!
• “How do I get into the industry?” – I talk about networking, playing games, capitalizing on existing skills, being a nice person, starting as a tester, getting an education, looking for intern positions, etc.
• “How do I become a lead designer?” – I downplay the glamorous fantasy of being a lead and, instead, stress the difficulties of the position and, most importantly, the importance of being a leader rather than a dictator.

At the last student meet-up, there were only three students (according to the teacher, the 20+ people in this semester’s class are a perfect storm of underachievers and slackers), but one girl asked the best question: “what did you do at work today?”

9:00 – Dropped off $40 at Robert’s desk (our IT guy) for a copy of Portal 2 for the PS3 which I had actually sold to him last week when I got the PC version. The PC version crashes on me after chapter 3 whenever I pick up any object, so I bought it back from him with the hope of increased stability and a desire to finish the game. He gets motion sickness from FPS style games, so it wasn’t that big a deal for him. When I’m done with it, I’ll probably just give it to him.

9:15 – Got a glass of water (I’ve recently weaned myself off plastic bottles).  I try to drink 8 glasses a day even though it’s actually easier to grab a free soda out of the fridge. While I was there, I put a new roll of paper towel on the dispenser (my wife would be proud!) because I hate the fact that a lot of people just assume that our facilities girl will take care of it!

9:25 – Started up Perforce. Every morning, I sync to the latest content. This takes about 5 minutes. Occasionally I worry that I am actually checking out the entire branch instead of merely sync’ing. I’ve never done this, but I know plenty of people who have. To make matters worse, I’ve got a changelist I’m not allowed to check in because it contains a Willie Nelson song I used during a demo last week. I like to build everything after a sync because I’ll take a look at other peoples’ work to see all the exciting developments with the game! It takes about 15 minutes to do a full build.

9:30 – While I’m waiting for the game to build, I catch up on the morning’s email (work and personal). This morning I’m also taking a look at an animation candidate’s reel who’s coming in for an interview today. The reel looks pretty good and one of his character’s has a low poly comb-over which makes me giggle! I sit pretty close to the kitchen, so I also have to listen to a ton of chatter during the build as people make their coffee. That’s why I own headphones!

10:00 – Usually we have a design department meeting on Monday mornings, but the lead designer is out, so we skipped today. At the weekly design meeting, we’ll talk about what everybody is working on, whether there are any new tools / processes, and what movies we saw or what games we played over the weekend.

10:15 – Today I’m working on level design and some event authoring. The level design portion of my day will entail me creating blockmesh (low polygon blocks which shape the gameplay space) and working closely with the level artist to incorporate event-related geometry. I work in Maya for level design and object authoring / placement. We don’t have a scripting system per se, so everything related to the planning and execution of events is data driven through xml files.

We work in pods. In my case, it’s myself, a gameplay programmer, two level artists, and a texture artist.  My level artist got a new computer today, so he’s down for a few hours. In the meantime, I’m building blockmesh off in space above the level. I’ve moved the spawn point for the player to this space so that I can continue to work. When my artist is back up and running, he’ll delete geometry in the space that I need and I’ll transplant the work to that spot. My level isn’t at the top of the priority list right now (there are three levels ahead of me), so I’m missing a bunch of crucial player mechanics and I’ve got minimal support for animation and effects. Without these crucial player mechanics a lot of the level design consists of best guestimates (as far as player-metrics) and intuition (what may be fun). At a later date when the player mechanics are implemented, I will probably have to redo portions of the level design to get the gameplay feel I want.

Today I’m dealing with an area in the level where we want the player to be locked into gameplay for a set amount of time. The problem is that the level is treated like an open-world, so I can’t use one-way doors or sudden force fields or anything. Instead, I’m using the environment to gate the player by having the gameplay objective at the bottom of a pit-like structure which there’s no way out of until the gameplay is finished. It’s not the most awesome solution ever, so I’m spending a considerable amount of time creating some visual storytelling around the pit to sell it as an actual location rather than an arbitrary convenience.

11:30 – I want to use an enemy from another level. In order to do this, I’m working with our enemy AI gameplay programmer to come up with a variant on an existing enemy. This enemy will spawn out of the ground and be tracked to go along with the pit event I’m working on in the level layout. I’ll have to author the spawn point in Maya and set up the necessary data in XML: object name, object group, goal name, world location, etc.

12:00 – “I don’t know” is definitely an honest answer to an interview question, but probably not the ideal answer. Personally, when I interview a candidate I look for insights into process and problem solving.

12:30 – Early lunch run (I usually go to lunch around 1:30) to Chipotle with one of the other designers. None of the people working there seem to remember us even though we go at least once a week. One of them is really chintzy with the portions. She places ingredients into the burrito and then starts removing them. Just leave it there! We take our food back to the office and I work on some sketches for my blockmesh while I eat. When I hand off work to my level artist, I find that blockmesh is best accompanied by some sort of sketch to show what I’m thinking of.

1:00 on – For the rest of the day I work with the gameplay programmer to set up my pit area with rough versions of events to make sure all the gameplay is accounted for. There are various hitches with the tech that I’m able to work through and others that I need additional assistance with. By the end of the day, the block mesh and gameplay events are in a pretty good state.

SIDE NOTE: During every project, I try and accomplish a silly goal of some sort. Today marks the day that the silly goal is created. Myself, the gameplay programmer, and a designer from the pod next door decide to see if we can balance on a Razer scooter for a minute or longer. So far, we’ve hit a record of 7 seconds, but hope to achieve the minute mark by the end of the project next summer!

I’m writing a book on game design and that’s about the extent of my self-promotion at this point. Y’see, self-promotion is a big problem for me because I have a crippling case of shyness in front of crowds (five or more people) which causes me to sweat, turn red, and talk too quickly. To put it into perspective, I actually had a court stenographer tell me that I was talking so quickly that she couldn’t keep up! Anyway, my good buddy Scott Rogers recently published a book on game design called Level Up! which is a damn fine book for anybody looking to learn more about game design. He has absolutely no problems with public speaking or appearances and actually seems to thrive on the limelight. He’s fully aware of my affliction and decided to help me out by asking me to speak on a panel with him at the 2011 WonderCon, “It will help you get past your public speaking problems!”

WonderCon April 1st, 2011 – Nerds! The Secret Origins of Game Designers “Comics. Movies. Games. Did you know that a life of fandom might be perfect training for a career as a video game designer? Learn the secret origins of industry veterans Haden Blackman (Star Wars: the Force Unleashed 1 & 2, Batwoman), Tim Longo (Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter, Star Wars: Dark Forces), Jason Weesner (Tomb Raider Legend, Vectorman), and Scott Rogers (God of War, Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design) as they share how their love for all things nerdy led to successful careers in video games… and how you can start your own career too!”

On the night prior to the panel, I could already feel myself getting anxious, so I purposefully stayed out late at the Rickshaw Stop (Australia’s Bag Raiders are terrific if you haven’t heard them or seen them), had one too many drinks (crappy vodka and Red Bull mixtures), and made sure that I got up at 6 AM the following morning to get ready. By the time I sat down at the WonderCon in front of three or four hundred people and three cute elf girls, I was operating on only a couple of hours of sleep, buzzing in my ears, and a slight hangover. Nervousness cured!

Despite some overall fuzziness, my 10 minutes of presentation went fairly well. I didn’t sweat or talk too quickly and the crowd laughed when I expected them to (and also when I didn’t). To frame my geeky selections properly, I separated my topics into two categories: things that influenced my interests and things that changed my perception. I’ll give you the quick version:

• 2000 A.D. – Famous UK comic that primarily featured more grounded characters (i.e. no superpowers or spandex per se) and some early writing from Alan Moore and Grant Morrison.  Expanded interests!
• Robotech – One of the first anime series I ever watched was also the first cartoon I remember that featured a main character dying (poor Roy Fokker!)! Prior to this, cartoons were very safe. I mean, any time GI Joe shot down a Cobra helicopter, there was always a little parachute that popped out to let you know that the bad guy didn’t die! Perception changed!
• Atari 2600 – With very few exceptions (Adventure and Yar’s Revenge spring to mind), Atari 2600 games were either severely limited in scope or poor imitations of popular arcade games.  Most of the time, we got stuck with a dog like Maze Craze or Haunted House where we spent more time making up our own rules and stories for the sparse gameplay variations. Expanded interests!
• Dungeons & Dragons – Despite the obvious social stigma (role playing was not very popular with the fairer sex or cooler people at school), D&D taught me more about game development than any other nerdy past time I had! Skills I acquired included: map making, design documentation, story / narrative integration, level design, and systems design. Expanded interests!
• Boy Scouts – There is no greater stimulation for fantasy than reality. The Boy Scouts took us out on real life adventures and taught us about camping, survival, knife skills, horseback riding, teamwork, etc. Despite the geeky uniform, Boy Scouts effectively trained us all to survive any eminent zombie apocalypse! Perception changed and expanded interests!
• The Exorcist – In 8th grade English class, our teacher showed us the uncut version of the Exorcist complete with backwards vomiting heads and bloody crucifix masturbation. This movie single-handedly changed my perception of storytelling, character development, and horror. It effectively pulled out the safety net from every movie I saw afterwards! Perception changed!
• Choose Your Own Adventure books - This concept wasn’t necessarily new when I picked up the Cave of Time by Edward Packard. Anybody who’s spent any amount of time in an American school probably picked up a dictionary where somebody had scrawled “turn to page 62″ on the bottom of the page which led to another page with another page number to turn to until you ended up at the end of the book with some uplifting message like F*** YOU! However, these Choose Your Own Adventure books were the first time that I encountered something resembling a non-linear narrative. Perception changed and expanded interests!
• Apple II+ – My Dad brought this home with every intention of writing a novel. It never happened. There weren’t a ton of games available to buy, so I either had to make them myself (I wish I could show you my low resolution version of Q*Bert!) or spend a lot of time typing in listings from hobby magazines. Inevitably these listings wouldn’t work, so I ended up fixing bugs or changing chunks of code significantly to improve the experience. Expanded interests!

OK, so that probably gives you a pretty good idea of what the panel was about. After we were done speaking, we opened up the presentation to questions from the audience and this is where it gets interesting (at least to me). Back when I was in school (grade and college), there were no specific courses that were related to video game design. Other than limited computer classes, information came from user groups, magazines, hanging out at the arcade, or any of the influences I mentioned above. These days, a ton of colleges offer video game design courses (which is a whole article unto itself) and the majority of people asking us questions were from those classes. Here’s a sample question:

“I’m finishing up a degree in game design, but I don’t want to be a programmer. How can I distance myself from programming?”

What?! Huh? I guess the first thing I’m curious about is what a degree in game design is all about? If it’s about actual game design, I would expect a student to know something about programming in relation to scripting (Java, some C++, exposure to XML, etc.), but that doesn’t mean they have to be a fully fledged programmer. It’s more about learning the necessary language that’s part of the tools needed to do your job and the ability to communicate with other disciplines. Perhaps the degree is really about game development. In that case, I would hope that there is a clear delineation between different disciplines and students aren’t forced to take courses that don’t apply to their areas of interest. Maybe it’s one of those degrees that concentrates on game art or computer science and has very little to do with design?

All of us on the panel answered those types of questions the same way, “always take advantage of opportunities to learn something new.” We also stressed the point that you can’t be a designer and not know something about programming.

There was another question that popped up in relation to starting a company, “I’m part of a startup, but I don’t want to do all these things I’m not interested in.” Again, I’m not sure where they’re adopting an attitude like this? Starting a company is all about doing whatever it takes to make that company successful! If it means that a designer or a programmer has to also be the person who goes out to pitch a project, then that’s the way it has to be!

I started out the panel nervously, but by the end of the presentation I wasn’t even sure whether the audience really understood the connections we’d tried to make between disparate, geeky interests and a career. I was actually a little bummed out. I can only assume that too much information and (implied) structure is undermining a lot of the traditionally looser aspects of game development that make it so interesting: breaking rule sets, working outside of the box, trying out new things, benefiting from happy accidents, etc. I’m also worried about the broad application of a term like “game design” when academia should really be calling it “game development” or “game art” or whatever it is that they’re really teaching.

The impression I get now from a lot of people is that they want to be game designers because they view it as some sort of ideal. Kind of like when I was a kid and all my friends wanted to be firemen or astronauts or lawyers. For me it was always different. At the time, I didn’t know that I wanted to be a game designer, but I did know that I wanted to do something that would provide me with an outlet for my creativity. My feelings were cemented by any number of influences and experiences. For example, a friend of the family took me to her work for the day. Her work happened to be at Pinewood Studios just outside of London. I spent part of the day with Ray Harryhausen watching him film the Medusa scene from Clash of the Titans. He was incredibly friendly and accessible and seemed honestly touched that I was so interested in what he was doing. After that, we went outside to watch Terry Gilliam film the scene from Time Bandits where the giant rises out of the water wearing a ship for a hat. I also got to wander through parts of the sets for Outland and what may have been the forest from Legend.  All name dropping aside, the point I’m making here is that I left the studio that day feeling more inspired than I’d ever felt in my entire life. I wouldn’t think that our lowly WonderCon panel had anywhere near the same effect on anybody sitting in the audience, but I sure hope these people are getting something like this from somewhere outside of the classroom or whatever current perception of the game industry they might have.

A simple definition of scope is “a measure of the breadth and width of a game in terms of assets, resources, time, and ambition.” Assets are the individual pieces that are needed to make a game at a very microscopic level: models, textures, scripts, code, sound files, etc. Resources are the people, software / tools, money, facilities, and equipment needed to produce the assets. Time is an estimation of the number of hours, days, weeks, months, and years it will take to create the assets with the given resources. Ambition is simply a measure of how big the game idea is.

Scope can be an elusive concept for a lot of people. It’s somewhat of a mystical art combining experience (good or bad), analysis (measuring known quantities like time against features and resources), and good old gut feelings. I came up with this exercise to put scope into perspective for a class on game design. I suppose if you were ballsy enough, you could also email it to a lead or manager who may also be unclear on the concept! This is by no means a complete list of every factor that can affect game development, but it should be applicable to just about any company and project. Here’s how it works. Go through each category, pick the answer that most suits your project, and write down the point value for each of your answers. Ready?

• Schedule: some level of management (internal studio or external producer) allocates an amount of time that a project will take to complete. In a best case scenario, this is based on estimates provided by the team. In a worst case scenario, it’s an unrealistic amount of time based on budget or a specific release date.
o Does the schedule allow more than a year for production? +2
o Does the schedule provide a year for production? +1
o Does the schedule give less than a year for production? -2

• Team: a good team lineup doesn’t always assure a smooth development cycle or a successful product, but a bad team never amounts to any good. Teams with a history are often able to overcome unexpected challenges and adversity whereas greener teams may crumble under the pressure!
o Are you working with a seasoned team (multiple development cycles)? +2
o Are you working with a proven team (at least one development cycle)? +1
o Are you working with an unproven team (no shared development cycle for the majority of the team members)? -1

• Technology: technology takes time to develop. If this time is concurrent with the actual development of the game, then problems are guaranteed to occur when technology isn’t ready for production. Technical risk is most often mitigated by adopting existing, proven technology although this can also be problematic…
o Is the project using existing and proven proprietary technology? +2
o Is the project using licensed technology? +1
o Is the project using new, unproven technology? -1
o Is the project switching to a different technology? -2

• Platform: this is pretty simple. The longer a platform has been around, the easier it becomes to develop for it.
o Is the target platform a mature platform? +1
o Is the project a launch title for a new platform? -1

• Preproduction: preproduction is all about project planning and prototyping. This critical part of the development cycle helps assess risk and resources.
o Does the schedule allow for a full preproduction cycle? +2
o Does the schedule allow for a partial preproduction cycle? +1
o Is there no preproduction cycle? -2

• Ideas: original ideas are generally the hardest ideas to tackle whereas existing properties can remove some of the risk with established standards. Licensed properties are a complete crapshoot. Some offer a great deal of creative freedom while others throw the shackles on the development team. For example, in the original Sega Genesis Jurassic Park game I worked on, Steven Spielberg insisted that no dinosaurs die in the game!
o Is the game based on an existing property? +2
o Is the game an original intellectual property? +1
o Is the game part of a licensed property? -1

• Tools: a video game is only as good as its toolset allows it to be. Tools that provide quick iteration times are the best. Slow or buggy tools take time away from production in ways too numerous to mention (at least in this post). Ideally, every discipline (art, design, code, sound, etc.) has the best tools possible!
o Is there a full tools suite for all disciplines? +2
o Are there only limited tools? -1
o Is there no toolset at all? -2

• Company: this is a scary one! The lifetime of a company is no real indicator of how smooth the development process will go. Over time, experience and common sense at most companies take a back seat to office politics and poor development processes that have become ingrained!
o Does the company have a proven track record? +1
o Is it a new company with no track record? -1

OK, time to add your numbers and see where you’re at in relation to scope:

-14                                        0                                        +14

————————————————————————–

FAILURE!                    TROUBLE?                    SUCCESS

So really, you’d want all your projects to be somewhere between 4 and 14. If you have a smart team and a good schedule, then there’s no real reason you should develop a bad game with that kind of scope. If you average out to 0 with your answers, then it’s time to ask management some questions and see if you can’t get responses that bump you back up into the more acceptable range. Anything less than 0 should be cause for alarm. Hopefully you’ve reached this conclusion before you start developing the game!

• BlueSky Software Mark One: thinking back on the bathroom at BlueSky Software reminds me of the Chinese restaurant episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza is describing his problems with a girlfriend’s apartment: “Well, it’s this little place with this little bathroom. It’s like right there, you know, it’s not even down a little hall or off in an alcove. You understand? There’s no… buffer zone.” One of the disadvantages of any small development house can be a sheer lack of space and the bathroom at BlueSky was probably never intended to accommodate a company of more than a dozen or so employees.  Twice that many artists and programmers shared a single occupancy room located between a programmer’s cube and a small kitchen area with a microwave and refrigerator.  The relationship of the bathroom to the surrounding cubes and a place where people prepare food was similar to restaurants where customers have to pass through the kitchen to use the facilities. The problem of location was further compounded by lack of a fan and 2 inch gap below the door which failed to contain any unfortunate odors or sound artifacts. Luckily, I was only working part time as a tester, so I was able to go home before any problems arose.
• BlueSky Software Mark Two: the move to a larger, nicer office complex included a modern two stall, two urinal bathroom with a shower! This would definitely be a hard act to follow….
• Activision: there were two bathrooms immediately available on the second floor for production to use. The executive bathroom was located over by the producers and managers while the more commonly used bathroom was basically part of the Zork: Grand Inquisitor team. Much like the original BlueSky bathroom, it lacked any sort of fan or ventilation and anybody using the facilities after eating an especially potent carne asada burrito would effectively carpet bomb the Zork artists’ cubes a few feet away. The executive bathroom was a little nicer and nowhere near anybody’s cubes, but some of the managers who visited the facilities had some strange habits. One producer in particular would stand several feet away from the urinal and arc his stream at the target!
• Namco: there was nothing particularly notable (good or bad) about the Namco bathroom. It was sufficiently separated from the development team with a double stall, double urinal, a decent fan, and plenty of room. However, it was kind of weird when a very short, older Japanese man stood next to me at the urinal one day and asked me if I was new and how I liked working at Namco. I’m not much of a bathroom talker (especially when both parties are  handling their genitals) so I didn’t say anything and just nodded my head. Later, as we were washing up, he introduced himself as the president of Namco Hometek!
• Accolade: since there were basically no women on our floor of the building, both bathrooms were designated as unisex. Most of the time, this wasn’t a problem, but incidents of mixed gender occupancy were always a looming danger for employees who were squeamish about sharing personal moments with the opposite sex. On one occasion, I was stuck in one of the stalls with stomach problems while two girls stood at the sinks and gossiped about their weekend for a half hour.
• VBlank: AltDevBlogADay founder Mike Acton, myself, and our partner David Kunkler started a small development company back in 2000 and moved into a cool, old office building above some night clubs and restaurants in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter. Even though the location was fantastic, the shared facilities were very old fashioned and consistently being assailed by a rogues’ gallery of drunk partiers, cell phone chatting businessmen, homeless people, and, quite possibly, a California brown bear that would leave bits of twigs, berries, and partially digested picnic baskets around the stalls.
• Visionscape Interactive: the VSI building was most likely occupied by some sort of biotech company prior to VSI moving in. The bathroom was a very large, single occupancy room with storage closets, benches, an industrial strength fan, and a pretty decent chemical shower setup.
• Crystal Dynamics Mark One: according to legend, the original Crystal Dynamics building used to be a church. It was a large, eclectic, two story building with a set of bathrooms on each floor. While the bottom floor enjoyed a decent fan, the upper floor was dead quiet, so the IT department put a radio in the bathroom for noise suppression and kept a steady flow of incense burning to cover up any off putting smells. All the urinals in the building were auto-flushing Zurn units with Cylon-like red eyes that would detect movement to clear the bowl. In late 2005, the Zurn units became self-aware and went into a never-ending flush mode that ended up flooding half of the first floor before we were able to load a virus into the mainframe and take them down.
• Crystal Dynamics Mark Two: we bid a sad farewell to the old building and moved into a high tech business park built alongside some salt flats in Redwood City. With the new building came new bathroom facilities: nice double occupancy rooms with a shower on the first floor. Unfortunately. some element of possibly disgruntled employees began to pee on the floor under and around the urinals in what became fondly known as Lake Urine. Additionally, masses of ancient Game Developer and other industry magazines started to overtake the stalls effectively turning them into something you’d find in a public park. Luckily for some of us, we discovered that the unoccupied bathroom on the floor above us had pristine facilities that we could sneak into through an unlocked stairwell as long as we avoided the occasional security guard or real estate agent. We formed an exclusive club with simple rules: don’t get caught, keep the bathroom clean, don’t leave any signs of occupancy, turn the light off when you’re done, and, most importantly, don’t tell anybody else about the secret bathrooms!
• Planet Moon: when I started at Planet Moon, there were two teams on two separate floors. However, the publisher for one of the projects unceremoniously canceled the game and caused a large percentage of the company to be laid off. This created a situation similar to Crystal Dynamics where there was a set of bathrooms not being used. The upstairs bathroom on my team was not terrible, but it was tight quarters with very little space between the urinal and the stall. Many employees using the stall would spend an inordinate amount of time spelling out obscene stories with magnetic tiles on the wall. This effectively locked up the space for anybody else who needed to use it.

We’re all used to our bathrooms at home; our little sanctuaries where we have scented candles and reading materials in nice wooden baskets and we don’t pee on the seat or forget to leave the fan on when we have a problem. Work seems to be a different situation altogether even though some of us spend more time in the office than we do at home! A bad bathroom isn’t necessarily a direct reflection of the company or the corporate culture. Like software, tools, and schedules, you somehow manage to do your job with what you have. BUT, a bad bathroom is something that can always be improved through a combination of personal behavior modification (treating the bathroom at work like your bathroom at home) and making an attempt to address issues with the facilities themselves (refer to Crystal Dynamics Mark One). Why should anybody have to struggle with the simple decisions in life when the difficult ones (like trying to be creative for 8+ hours a day even when you’re not inspired) are the ones that can be the most rewarding?