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Monday 28 July 2008

Superb Blog

For anyone interested in Game AI you can't beat a look at the Game/AI blog:

http://www.ai-blog.net/

Sunday 27 July 2008

The Importance of Playtesting

Playtesting is an emerging discipline in games design that should hopefully become a required part of the production pipeline. Its value is often underplayed by many companies, even sometimes derided by designers, but it is quite simply the only way that you can properly guage how well you are building your game, and will result in you producing a better game if you approach it in the right way.

By far the leaders in this field are Microsoft. Their Games User Research department is just astounding.

http://mgsuserresearch.com/default.htm?MSID=8934bfd6814e40afb5835315db01c453&c00=1

Their site has a lot of links to talks that various members of the group have given at different games conferences. Having seen Ramon's talk at GDC this year, I was astounded to the level of depth they are now able to analyse games. However, not all of us have these facilities at our disposal.

However, we can attempt to replicate certain elements of their work on a tighter budget:

1. Provide Instrumentation
Having your game dump data as a player uses the game will allow you to collate much more information than user feedback or observation alone. Crunching the data can be tricky, so carefully plan out what data you want to watch beforehand - don't dump absolutely every scrap of information - only what you really need. For example, you might want to know what combos people are using in a fighting game, positions where people are dying often, or the times people are achieving in time trials.

2. Question your Subject
Asking for feedback from your test subject is vital. They should be encouraged to talk as much as possible about how they are feeling and what they are thinking as they are playing. This will provide vital information - sometimes people see things in a completely unexpected way. Also use questionaires to seek out answers to certain questions you may have - explore how they feel about certain aspects - and importantly whether they are enjoying the game experience.

3. Observe
There is nothing quite like watching someone play your game to understand the problems that people may encounter. It is vital however not to be tempted to give advice or show them solutions to problems (unless they are completely stuck for a protracted period of time and you want to press on with the testing).

Monday 14 July 2008

Why I should have paid attention in school

I was thinking the other day of how many subjects are useful for the field of game design and I came to the realisation that pretty much every single subject has some sort of use for a game designer.

There's the obvious subjects such as Maths, English and Science, but even more obscure subjects hold some useful information.
  • Maths -for programmers it's an essential, but a designer definately needs a knowledge of mathematics. It helps when devising rules for mechanics and plays a hand in analysing playtesting data. It allows the designer to calculate desired angles and distances when building geometry, calculating the speed of elements and plays all sorts of other roles.
  • English - a designer is a communicator. Thus english plays a vital role in defining how well a designer can communicate with others, both in the written word and verbally. Also english literature is a vital skill. Knowing stories, tales and the structure of writing will help enormously when working on narrative driven games. I'm not saying the designer should be writing the story, but they should definately have the knowledge of what works and what doesn't.
  • Science - all the sciences hold a great deal of knowledge that is rich pickings for a designer. Chemistry and its compounds and formulas, Physics with its modelling of the real world, and Biology with its analysis of life - all these give the designer a starting point for simulation and ideas for twisting known science to produce something new (science fiction).
  • Geography - the knowledge of geology, population, migration, peoples & culture is also essential to a designer. They need to know how real world populations develop to make their own worlds believable, they need to know how various strutures are formed so they can be twisted into something even more impressive.
  • History - the knowldege of the past, events that shaped our culture and people that affected human development - all of these are vital to creating more believable worlds. They also provide immense inspiration.
  • Design and Technology - this has pretty obvious translation to game design - the crafting of a product and the design process itself.
  • Art - again art has a pretty obvious application in design.
  • Religious Education - the study of other cultures is extremely useful to a designer, being able to understand these differences and imbue their own worlds with such details again will increase believability. Tackling the subject of real world religions in games does however is still a bit of a hot potato.
  • Physical Education - this one I struggled with for a bit, but there is still plenty that applies to game design. Firstly the rules of team sports can have a direct correlation. But further elements such as muscle structure, movement and other aspects of physicality can also be applied.

In short, I didn't realise how useful this stuff was at the time. If you're wanting to be a game designer and you're still at school - pay attention - it will all be useful some day.

Friday 4 July 2008

Is this how you look playing games?

http://www.mrtoledano.com/frame_videogamers.php

If I look like these lot whilst playing games I may have to quit...

Wednesday 2 July 2008

Games increasing on the High Street

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/hmv-videogames-are-the-new-rock-n-roll

It's interesting to see giants like HMV shifting their focus onto the games market. It really is proving that the erosion of traditional media has got them scared. This can only be a good thing for the games industry as a whole - more competition should free up the market and might hopefully stop Game's relentless pursuit of the secondhand market, which is undoubtable a very short-sighted way of making profit.

Personally, I always try to buy a game I like brand-new, I want to see money go to the developers. Game's cheeky profit margins on secondhand goods is getting ridiculous.