I shared my Sketchup map last time, and I wanted to share what I learned while I built it and just after.
First, Sketchup is just as flawed as people warned me it would be. Its got a lot of "smart" logic built into it, which means it is constantly guessing exactly where you want the line or shape your drawing. This makes for a lot of grid-snapping, and if you're careful and methodical I imagine it would/could be an extremely smooth process to draw with.
I should point out right now, though, that easily creating original 3D structures in only a few minutes is a pretty exciting thing for me, so my experience with Sketchup has been really positive. Yeah, I had a lot of problems with perspective, and yeah, sometimes just controlling the camera can be a chore, but I'm pleased overall.
Anyway, here are a few tips for those coming behind me in GD24 and beyond, and maybe for those trying out Sketchup for themselves.
1. Choose a strong theme and settle on some USPs First - My theme (or story) in broad strokes was that Samus is investigating a space pirate excavation on a jungle planet. I also wanted a branching path right off the bat, and I wanted there to be very old-school Metroidy secrets built in to the map. By laying this out in less than ten minutes I was able to focus my design for the entirety of the project. It made the process uch easier.
2. Know Your Scope and Stay There - Limit your scope to the ~5 minute playtime the assignment calls for, and control that scope creep. I know some guys who are much more talented than me with software and art, and their maps didn't have the flair or detail that mine did. Having said that, there's were almost universally much cleaner than mine, but more on that in a minute.
3. Keep Your Extrusions Small - This will keep your level more manageable, and make it more obvious when Sketchup is sticking lines along an axis you can't see right now. It will also make any models you create (like my chozo and Samus) look decent even from different angles. Note that my extrusions were almost universally too big (deep), which makes some of those models looks a bit funny.
4. Check Youtube for videos about specific effects you want to recreate - There are some excellent tutorial videos out there. I found out how to make transparent textures in five minutes, rather than hunting around for the capability myself.
5. Do a "polish pass" on your map and eliminate any unnecessary lines, especially on transparent textures. If you look at my water, elevator, and the huge chunks that make up the outside of my map, you can see exactly what I'm talking about. With a bit more know-how and just a few more minutes I could have improved the looks of my map significantly.
Anyway, while I am expecting a few headaches and some swearing during my next go-around with Sketchup (I am tasked with creating a UT3 deathmatch map), I'm looking forward to learning a bit more about what Sketchup can do...
Maybe a map that has a tonne of transparent textures?...
Tuesday 27 September 2011
Monday 26 September 2011
Super Metroid Lite in Google Sketchup
So, Yesterday (Sunday) I came in to school at around 9:30AM for "five hours" or so, and instead I didn't leave for more like 15. What was holding my attention so completely that I missed the last skytrain out of Chinatown? The creation of my very own Metroid map using Adobe Photoshop CS5 and Google Sketchup.
Most you know of Photoshop, an industry standard software for image manipulation, but you may not have heard of Sketchup, which I think is considered by many to be the "rough draft" of a 3D imaging software. It's free, too (with CS5 being really expensive). Anyway, Photoshop and Sketchup are both brand new to me—more on that later—and Sketchup is notorious for being extremely difficult, so I had a few things working against me in creating a decent level map.
Worst of all, though, was that I was really enjoying the process (except for becoming regularly apoplectic when Sketchup wrecked things up). Long story short, I made an extremely detailed level map that I'm pretty proud of, and I wanted to share it with you. It's hard to make out details in the screenshot, but it's got a chozo, Samus' ship, and Samus all in 3D. Well, kind of. It started out as a 2D pixel grid I made in photoshop.
Anyway, here's hoping for good grades. Now I'm going to learn about Flash.
Most you know of Photoshop, an industry standard software for image manipulation, but you may not have heard of Sketchup, which I think is considered by many to be the "rough draft" of a 3D imaging software. It's free, too (with CS5 being really expensive). Anyway, Photoshop and Sketchup are both brand new to me—more on that later—and Sketchup is notorious for being extremely difficult, so I had a few things working against me in creating a decent level map.
Worst of all, though, was that I was really enjoying the process (except for becoming regularly apoplectic when Sketchup wrecked things up). Long story short, I made an extremely detailed level map that I'm pretty proud of, and I wanted to share it with you. It's hard to make out details in the screenshot, but it's got a chozo, Samus' ship, and Samus all in 3D. Well, kind of. It started out as a 2D pixel grid I made in photoshop.
Anyway, here's hoping for good grades. Now I'm going to learn about Flash.
Friday 23 September 2011
Portfolio Class - Re-Experiencing Chrono Trigger
In class right now and our instructor (Jacob Tran) is leading us through some of the ways to market ourselves and our new/polished skills. He wants us to write about a recent game we played, and while I haven't had much time to play anything recently, I did indulge in some retro gaming since coming to the Vancouver area. My game of choice? Square's ground-breaking and trail-blazing 1995 RPG Chrono Trigger (originally on the SNES).
Chrono Trigger follows a spiky-haired redhead named Crono through his adventures through time that start out fairly small in scope (with a princess requiring some rescue), but the story (and stakes) quickly escalate to include the fate of the entire world as the heroes hop through time to discover that the year 1999 is the date of an apocalypse engineered by a creature called Lavos. The willing heroes commit to travel through time to unravel the secrets of Lavos' dire machinations and end the threat.
Chrono Trigger's graphics, at the time, were pretty great, with large, detailed, expressive characters designed by Akira Toriyama (of DBZ fame). The characters and critters are a mix of realistic and cartoony, and they do the trick. The storyline is a good deal easier to "get," unlike some of the other stuff Square has done, with some nice twists and suitably epic battles supported by an excellent score from master Square composers. The combat system is simple, based on a timed system between character "turns," and when multiple characters are ready to attack you can activate multi-member techniques that typically deal a lot more damage to more enemies.
I found the story arcs were a lot shallower than I used to believe they were, and while this could just be the nostalgia talking, I'm pretty sure they weren't even as fully realized as those from FFIII (which Square released a year earlier in North America). Still, they're on par or better than most of the games ever released in terms of storytelling. Some of the moments (like Lucca's travel back in time to the site and date of an accident where her mother lost the use of her legs), are poignant and raise some ethical issues that leave an impression.
Anyway, Chrono Trigger (and its unheard-of-before 12 endings) stands up pretty well overall to the 17 years since it was released. Now I have a craving for FFIII...
Thanks for reading.
Chrono Trigger follows a spiky-haired redhead named Crono through his adventures through time that start out fairly small in scope (with a princess requiring some rescue), but the story (and stakes) quickly escalate to include the fate of the entire world as the heroes hop through time to discover that the year 1999 is the date of an apocalypse engineered by a creature called Lavos. The willing heroes commit to travel through time to unravel the secrets of Lavos' dire machinations and end the threat.
Chrono Trigger's graphics, at the time, were pretty great, with large, detailed, expressive characters designed by Akira Toriyama (of DBZ fame). The characters and critters are a mix of realistic and cartoony, and they do the trick. The storyline is a good deal easier to "get," unlike some of the other stuff Square has done, with some nice twists and suitably epic battles supported by an excellent score from master Square composers. The combat system is simple, based on a timed system between character "turns," and when multiple characters are ready to attack you can activate multi-member techniques that typically deal a lot more damage to more enemies.
I found the story arcs were a lot shallower than I used to believe they were, and while this could just be the nostalgia talking, I'm pretty sure they weren't even as fully realized as those from FFIII (which Square released a year earlier in North America). Still, they're on par or better than most of the games ever released in terms of storytelling. Some of the moments (like Lucca's travel back in time to the site and date of an accident where her mother lost the use of her legs), are poignant and raise some ethical issues that leave an impression.
Anyway, Chrono Trigger (and its unheard-of-before 12 endings) stands up pretty well overall to the 17 years since it was released. Now I have a craving for FFIII...
Thanks for reading.
Tuesday 20 September 2011
Board Game Scope Creep...
So, I clearly can't take my own advice. The original vision was for a simpler game so I could focus on iteration and polish. Sacrifice (mentioned before) is creeping into the universe of too much complexity. We're talking combat, character cards, an evasion track, multiple critter types, hundreds of cards, dozens of tokens... simple core mechanics and a strong theme could make this game great, but only if I have the time and skill to make it. I probably don't.
Now is probably the time to rein this in and go with a simpler idea. Let's see what I can find online for making my own board game...
Now is probably the time to rein this in and go with a simpler idea. Let's see what I can find online for making my own board game...
Monday 19 September 2011
Board Game Theme First Draft
On the heels of my post about being a writer, I have settled on two finalist ideas for the analog game we need to build from the ground up for the end of this term. And, of course, I've started by writing stories to orient the players, establish the stakes, and (hopefully) grab interest.
Before I get to that, though, I want to point out that there are some near-legendary analog game titles floating around our classrooms, namely 'Polarity' and 'Shockwave'. These titles—being two winners of previous VFS board game nights and with their creator's names immortalized on a plaque in one of our game labs—are held by previous students who took an extremely simple game mechanic and built fantastic and highly strategic games out of them. The equivalent of re-inventing checkers. Easy-to-play, hard-to-master.
Being me, I want to see my name on that plaque. Unfortunately, despite a lot of solid ideas—I'm pretty sure I could make 15 enjoyable board and card games from my list of 26—I didn't re-invent checkers. Early on, I decided to focus on polish, rather than pure innovation. So, here are my two front-runners.
1. God Seed - a card game where the players take the roles of enormous, warring anthropomorphic trees. This game would be heavily steeped in African or South American mythology, and would be played over the course of 1000 years (20 turns). The goal is for the trees to grow the largest and wisest, and to have the most followers. The trees would unleash their wrath upon each other and perform miracles for their people.
Pros: Easy to build, easy to iterate, interesting premise, strong uniqueness
Cons: I don't have many of the mechanics worked out, which means I have no game
2. Sacrifice - A board game set in the distant future where four survivors battle starvation and horrible mutants as they scrounge for supplies in post-apocalyptia. Safety can come from numbers, but splitting provides more draws for supplies while increasing the chances of running into dangerous critters. The goal is for at least one player to survive long enough to collect (or build) a set number of fuel cells, reach a shelter, and seal themselves inside in relative paradise. The sacrifice mechanic may come into play regularly as food is scarce and rampaging mutants are content with a single meal.
Pros: Accessible theme for the average gamer, high degree of (scalable) challenge, boss critters, multiple paths to success, clear mechanics, sacrifice mechanic is unique, if done right this game could really cause some emotion
Cons: Much harder to make, more complex (so harder to playtest and iterate)
So, as of this evening I was leaning towards Sacrifice (actually the whole title might be "What are you willing to SACRIFICE?), but I have just a touch over three weeks to build a whole board game. It's a difficult choice for me, and one that I have to make this week.
Here's the first draft of my intro text for Sacrifice. Let me know what you think of the ideas.
Before I get to that, though, I want to point out that there are some near-legendary analog game titles floating around our classrooms, namely 'Polarity' and 'Shockwave'. These titles—being two winners of previous VFS board game nights and with their creator's names immortalized on a plaque in one of our game labs—are held by previous students who took an extremely simple game mechanic and built fantastic and highly strategic games out of them. The equivalent of re-inventing checkers. Easy-to-play, hard-to-master.
Being me, I want to see my name on that plaque. Unfortunately, despite a lot of solid ideas—I'm pretty sure I could make 15 enjoyable board and card games from my list of 26—I didn't re-invent checkers. Early on, I decided to focus on polish, rather than pure innovation. So, here are my two front-runners.
1. God Seed - a card game where the players take the roles of enormous, warring anthropomorphic trees. This game would be heavily steeped in African or South American mythology, and would be played over the course of 1000 years (20 turns). The goal is for the trees to grow the largest and wisest, and to have the most followers. The trees would unleash their wrath upon each other and perform miracles for their people.
Pros: Easy to build, easy to iterate, interesting premise, strong uniqueness
Cons: I don't have many of the mechanics worked out, which means I have no game
2. Sacrifice - A board game set in the distant future where four survivors battle starvation and horrible mutants as they scrounge for supplies in post-apocalyptia. Safety can come from numbers, but splitting provides more draws for supplies while increasing the chances of running into dangerous critters. The goal is for at least one player to survive long enough to collect (or build) a set number of fuel cells, reach a shelter, and seal themselves inside in relative paradise. The sacrifice mechanic may come into play regularly as food is scarce and rampaging mutants are content with a single meal.
Pros: Accessible theme for the average gamer, high degree of (scalable) challenge, boss critters, multiple paths to success, clear mechanics, sacrifice mechanic is unique, if done right this game could really cause some emotion
Cons: Much harder to make, more complex (so harder to playtest and iterate)
So, as of this evening I was leaning towards Sacrifice (actually the whole title might be "What are you willing to SACRIFICE?), but I have just a touch over three weeks to build a whole board game. It's a difficult choice for me, and one that I have to make this week.
Here's the first draft of my intro text for Sacrifice. Let me know what you think of the ideas.
What are you willing to
SACRIFICE?
Earth during the 24th century. The bombs have fallen and the atmosphere has been scorched away. The sun's energy, source of almost all life on our once-verdant home, kills without mercy anything that is foolish enough to brave daylight. Humanity is all but extinct, having fallen side-by-side with the flora and fauna worldwide. There is no industry; there is no civilization. There is only the flagging hope of the few starving survivors brave and strong enough to scrounge for forgotten food and shelter during the longest, coldest nights since our last ice age.
But at night, the abominations come out to hunt—twisted monsters from the films and videogames of ages past. They scream and charge and relentlessly call to their horrid siblings, growing silent again only in death or when they feed.
On the brink of starvation, you are one of four survivors who have beaten all odds to reach what could be your salvation—a huge sealed shelter that will provide food and safety for years. Only now, at the end of your strength, do you face your greatest challenge of surviving long enough to gather or build the fuel cells required to get inside, activate the shelter, and seal yourself away in relative paradise.
You'll need to work together, watch each other's backs, and take a great number of risks—any one potentially spelling doom for you all—to succeed. You may be hunted, wounded, or killed, but above all else you will answer the following question: what are you willing to sacrifice?
---
Sacrifice is a game of survival horror, where supplies are scarce, danger is around every corner, and fighting will usually be your last resort. Your goal is to find (or build) eight fuel cells and get them to the shelter in the middle of the city. The abominations pose a constant threat, but even more relentless is your need for food—your bodies are at the very end of their strength, and missing even a single day will cause you to start shutting down. Balancing your immediate needs with the constant threat of abominations behind every door will be difficult, but it is made far worse by the slow but steady and permanent migration of abominations into your area of the city.
Each day leaves you with fewer places to search for supplies and a greater chance that a single abomination could summon several others. At the end of your 10th night in the city, the abominations will have filled this area, and you will be forced to wait outside for the sun's deadly rays, or to be killed by an overwhelming force of monsters. Hopefully you will have unsealed the shelter by then...
---
What do you think? Got any feedback? Think I should focus on God Seed instead?
Thanks for reading.
Story Guy in Digital World
Heading in to my fourth week of school already, and I've completed around eight assignments of varying complexity with a few more in the pipes. Got a big win today after submitting my back-alley dice game programmed in C#. I had a LOT of help with it from fellow students (big thanks to Angus, Cramer, Marc, and Gray), but I'll take the win, and the game turned out to be pretty entertaining (with Zap Brannigan and Kif providing the dialog). It wasn't elegant—I finished up with somewhere around 550 lines of code, where the guys with Comp Sci degrees were finishing in under 300—but it doesn't break and it has a lot of personality.
It also reinforced with great strength and clarity that I will not be a programmer without a complete change in personality and inclination. Wow, do I hate feeling clueless. Our next assignment will be to code a Tamagotchi-style virtual pet, which might just be terrible, but the group project afterwards (a text adventure) has me pretty excited to have my strongest skills at the group's disposal.
Anyway, here is one of my favourite Zapper lines before I go any further.
For the most part, my assignments are going really well with good grades and high praise rewarding the extra touches I've been focusing on. I would be surprised if I don't end up with a 90% average heading into the second half of my first term. As a story guy with a strong writing background, these early assignments (which are mostly written) are a breeze, and the topics are awesome (I broke Chrono Trigger down into the three-act storytelling structure last week, for example). This bodes well as the writing will remain important and useful throughout my stay at VFS.
What's strange, though—shocking, even—is that I haven't been taken up on my offer to help anyone write or edit their assignments so far. We have ESL guys from India, Mexico, Columbia, and Brazil, as well as guys and gals fresh out of high school, and not one of them is looking for free help from a seasoned editor.
It boggled my mind, and it took a comment from my wife to sort out what I should have known already. It's simple. Most people think they can write. Some people who have no formal training or a good deal of experience can write very well in their fields—my last boss was a good writer, for example, and he was an auditor before running his own software company. Most people, though, are only passable writers with little grasp of grammar or pacing or sentence structure. For most people that's just fine, too—it's just goofballs like me who would scoff at investing in a venture with typo-ridden documentation or poor marketing or bad dialog. Right?
Well, maybe not, but I know that unless you have written a one-hour weekly drama or a best-selling novel, people generally don't consider written communication skills to be all that important or impressive. For example, I can't count how many times I've had to explain what I did these past nine years (four of them in school). Journalism? Not really my focus. Software development? You, reader, know that isn't true. IT? If I'm handling your IT, you have a problem.
I write and I edit. Words. Those may be my greatest skills.
Writing and editing are disciplines like any other—art forms, really—with each requiring practice and, in my case, formal training to polish into career-worthy skills. I didn't know this in high school, and I have met dozens of people of all ages and at all stages in their lives that don't get that.
Anyway, this is a VERY long-winded way of saying that I hope some of my fellow students take what I'm offering. I hope I can convince them over the year that I have the expertise to help them write clear, interesting, and useful works. I know that strong communications skills will be useful to every one of them in their future careers and personal lives, but maybe they're hoping to get by with the basics of the craft.
Considering my feelings about C# and photoshop, I'm not sure I blame them. :)
Thanks for reading.
It also reinforced with great strength and clarity that I will not be a programmer without a complete change in personality and inclination. Wow, do I hate feeling clueless. Our next assignment will be to code a Tamagotchi-style virtual pet, which might just be terrible, but the group project afterwards (a text adventure) has me pretty excited to have my strongest skills at the group's disposal.
Anyway, here is one of my favourite Zapper lines before I go any further.
For the most part, my assignments are going really well with good grades and high praise rewarding the extra touches I've been focusing on. I would be surprised if I don't end up with a 90% average heading into the second half of my first term. As a story guy with a strong writing background, these early assignments (which are mostly written) are a breeze, and the topics are awesome (I broke Chrono Trigger down into the three-act storytelling structure last week, for example). This bodes well as the writing will remain important and useful throughout my stay at VFS.
What's strange, though—shocking, even—is that I haven't been taken up on my offer to help anyone write or edit their assignments so far. We have ESL guys from India, Mexico, Columbia, and Brazil, as well as guys and gals fresh out of high school, and not one of them is looking for free help from a seasoned editor.
It boggled my mind, and it took a comment from my wife to sort out what I should have known already. It's simple. Most people think they can write. Some people who have no formal training or a good deal of experience can write very well in their fields—my last boss was a good writer, for example, and he was an auditor before running his own software company. Most people, though, are only passable writers with little grasp of grammar or pacing or sentence structure. For most people that's just fine, too—it's just goofballs like me who would scoff at investing in a venture with typo-ridden documentation or poor marketing or bad dialog. Right?
Well, maybe not, but I know that unless you have written a one-hour weekly drama or a best-selling novel, people generally don't consider written communication skills to be all that important or impressive. For example, I can't count how many times I've had to explain what I did these past nine years (four of them in school). Journalism? Not really my focus. Software development? You, reader, know that isn't true. IT? If I'm handling your IT, you have a problem.
I write and I edit. Words. Those may be my greatest skills.
Writing and editing are disciplines like any other—art forms, really—with each requiring practice and, in my case, formal training to polish into career-worthy skills. I didn't know this in high school, and I have met dozens of people of all ages and at all stages in their lives that don't get that.
Anyway, this is a VERY long-winded way of saying that I hope some of my fellow students take what I'm offering. I hope I can convince them over the year that I have the expertise to help them write clear, interesting, and useful works. I know that strong communications skills will be useful to every one of them in their future careers and personal lives, but maybe they're hoping to get by with the basics of the craft.
Considering my feelings about C# and photoshop, I'm not sure I blame them. :)
Thanks for reading.
Saturday 17 September 2011
Five Tips for a Good Elevator Pitch
For those of you who haven't heard the term, the elevator pitch or elevator speech is the laser-focused information you give about your company, your script idea, or (in the case of one of my recent assignments) a game idea you want to work on. It is supposed to last a minute or less (the length of an elevator ride), and you have to grab the audience's attention, hit the key points, and reiterate in simple terms so they have a strong image to associate with your brand.
It's pretty simple in practice, but like all public-speaking tasks it can be nerve-wracking. I'm pretty outgoing, but public speaking does make me nervous. You want to be natural, relaxed, and memorable, but as a writer, I prepped a decent, vivid "script" for myself that hit all the main points, and then set out to memorize it.
Do you see the potential problems here? I was stacking the need to memorize on top of anxiety, and whenever I forgot the beautiful terms I had dreamed up it made me stumble or blank out.
Fortunately on the day of the pitch, I gathered small groups of classmates and we did round-table pitch critique. Even more fortunate, one of those classmates—a guy who taught sexual education to groups of students and who is extremely comfortable speaking to groups—was among them. With his coaching I delivered a pitch that got very high praise from the instructors.
So, here's how I did it (with a great deal of help). Your mileage may vary.
1. Know Your Vision
The game idea I pitched is a fully-fleshed out and attainable game which made it very easy to focus my pitch. You don't need to have a design document written, but you do need to grok the broad strokes of your game's theme, core mechanics, and its unique selling features (the three things you are hoping people will take away from your pitch).
Having a killer new mechanic or a twist on an old one is great, and as a concept pitch it could be enough to carry you through, but you'll probably be better served building at least a skeleton around that mechanic; the questions you answer for yourself will almost certainly be asked after your pitch.
2. Know the Structure
A basic game pitch should have:
* a memorable name that is on-theme
* a one-sentence statement that orients the audience by providing the genre, the protagonist, and the core gameplay
* a brief (one-sentence) explanation for each of the three unique features the audience will remember
* a reiteration of the name and those three unique features
You don't have to follow this structure, but it does pack in all the required info in under a minute, and it will make your life easier as you prepare to deliver.
As a side note for game designers, your pitch should be focused much more on mechanics, rather than on story—it's an interactive game you are pitching, not a movie, so explaining how the player interacts is key. A solid story and theme are great to have, but ideally you will communicate those in the one-sentence statement and then only refer to them throughout the rest of the pitch. Use the theme or story to grab attention, then focus on what really makes your gameplay unique.
3. You Gotta Believe
Love your idea. If you aren't passionate about your game, no one else is going to be. You don't want to be up there frothing at the mouth, but a bit of professional intensity and measured animation will sell people not only on your vision, but on you. It will also help to loosen you up and think better on your feet.
4. Write a Script, then Throw it Away
Now that you know the subject and the structure so well (and clearly you love your idea) it will be easy to write that killer pitch you want to deliver. Unfortunately, you don't want to sound like you're reading off a script; you need to be charismatic and natural, and trying to fake it on the 22nd take adds a barrier to your successful pitch. Are you a trained actor? Are you willing to risk sounding rehearsed, and therefore, phony? The answer is probably no to both.
For future students, we were allowed to bring notes up with us for our pitches, but the assignment stated that written notes were not allowed. I would be surprised if the instructors didn't take that into account when grading us.
5. Use Your Nervousness - The Audience Doesn't Know What's Inside
A little bit of nervousness can give you the energy you need to push forward and deliver a good pitch. Remember that the audience doesn't know that you are screaming inside. A slight quiver in your voice or your hands, a pause or the need to clear your throat—these things probably won't even be noticed by the audience, so allow yourself that and focus on getting those points across.
If you do stumble or need to pause for any reason, don't draw attention to it by exaggerating a mispronounced word, making weird noises, or worse, cursing. Take the moment, breathe, and continue. You're human. People forgive nervousness all the time, but they can't make your game idea if you don't pass it on to them. If it has merit (and you know it does), you've won just by telling them about it.
6. (Yes, I know I said five) Practice
This sixth tip isn't for everyone—the guy who coached me, for instance, took no notes and delivered his pitch only once before he was up in front of the class. He did a great job. His idea was wacky and hilarious, which broke the ice into a million little pieces, and he was clearly as natural as possible because he hadn't committed a single word to paper.
For others, though—for me—practice reinforces your points, provides warning signs for words that may make you stumble, and (if you workshop in groups), gives you that all-important feedback from others. You don't have to take all the advice you are given, but being aware of how people perceive your ideas can make or break your pitch.
Appearing polished and comfortable with the subject matter are good things, but you have to balance those with your ability to speak naturally and be relaxed but personally and emotionally invested in your idea.
Most of all, though, do what works for you.
It's pretty simple in practice, but like all public-speaking tasks it can be nerve-wracking. I'm pretty outgoing, but public speaking does make me nervous. You want to be natural, relaxed, and memorable, but as a writer, I prepped a decent, vivid "script" for myself that hit all the main points, and then set out to memorize it.
Do you see the potential problems here? I was stacking the need to memorize on top of anxiety, and whenever I forgot the beautiful terms I had dreamed up it made me stumble or blank out.
Fortunately on the day of the pitch, I gathered small groups of classmates and we did round-table pitch critique. Even more fortunate, one of those classmates—a guy who taught sexual education to groups of students and who is extremely comfortable speaking to groups—was among them. With his coaching I delivered a pitch that got very high praise from the instructors.
So, here's how I did it (with a great deal of help). Your mileage may vary.
1. Know Your Vision
The game idea I pitched is a fully-fleshed out and attainable game which made it very easy to focus my pitch. You don't need to have a design document written, but you do need to grok the broad strokes of your game's theme, core mechanics, and its unique selling features (the three things you are hoping people will take away from your pitch).
Having a killer new mechanic or a twist on an old one is great, and as a concept pitch it could be enough to carry you through, but you'll probably be better served building at least a skeleton around that mechanic; the questions you answer for yourself will almost certainly be asked after your pitch.
2. Know the Structure
A basic game pitch should have:
* a memorable name that is on-theme
* a one-sentence statement that orients the audience by providing the genre, the protagonist, and the core gameplay
* a brief (one-sentence) explanation for each of the three unique features the audience will remember
* a reiteration of the name and those three unique features
You don't have to follow this structure, but it does pack in all the required info in under a minute, and it will make your life easier as you prepare to deliver.
As a side note for game designers, your pitch should be focused much more on mechanics, rather than on story—it's an interactive game you are pitching, not a movie, so explaining how the player interacts is key. A solid story and theme are great to have, but ideally you will communicate those in the one-sentence statement and then only refer to them throughout the rest of the pitch. Use the theme or story to grab attention, then focus on what really makes your gameplay unique.
3. You Gotta Believe
Love your idea. If you aren't passionate about your game, no one else is going to be. You don't want to be up there frothing at the mouth, but a bit of professional intensity and measured animation will sell people not only on your vision, but on you. It will also help to loosen you up and think better on your feet.
4. Write a Script, then Throw it Away
Now that you know the subject and the structure so well (and clearly you love your idea) it will be easy to write that killer pitch you want to deliver. Unfortunately, you don't want to sound like you're reading off a script; you need to be charismatic and natural, and trying to fake it on the 22nd take adds a barrier to your successful pitch. Are you a trained actor? Are you willing to risk sounding rehearsed, and therefore, phony? The answer is probably no to both.
For future students, we were allowed to bring notes up with us for our pitches, but the assignment stated that written notes were not allowed. I would be surprised if the instructors didn't take that into account when grading us.
5. Use Your Nervousness - The Audience Doesn't Know What's Inside
A little bit of nervousness can give you the energy you need to push forward and deliver a good pitch. Remember that the audience doesn't know that you are screaming inside. A slight quiver in your voice or your hands, a pause or the need to clear your throat—these things probably won't even be noticed by the audience, so allow yourself that and focus on getting those points across.
If you do stumble or need to pause for any reason, don't draw attention to it by exaggerating a mispronounced word, making weird noises, or worse, cursing. Take the moment, breathe, and continue. You're human. People forgive nervousness all the time, but they can't make your game idea if you don't pass it on to them. If it has merit (and you know it does), you've won just by telling them about it.
6. (Yes, I know I said five) Practice
This sixth tip isn't for everyone—the guy who coached me, for instance, took no notes and delivered his pitch only once before he was up in front of the class. He did a great job. His idea was wacky and hilarious, which broke the ice into a million little pieces, and he was clearly as natural as possible because he hadn't committed a single word to paper.
For others, though—for me—practice reinforces your points, provides warning signs for words that may make you stumble, and (if you workshop in groups), gives you that all-important feedback from others. You don't have to take all the advice you are given, but being aware of how people perceive your ideas can make or break your pitch.
Appearing polished and comfortable with the subject matter are good things, but you have to balance those with your ability to speak naturally and be relaxed but personally and emotionally invested in your idea.
Most of all, though, do what works for you.
Saturday 10 September 2011
Brainstorming Analog Games
So, two weeks of school and things are in full swing. I didn't get home earlier than 10PM all last week (though to be fair I was socializing Friday night when I could have come home). Having a good-sized commute (45 minutes door-to-door) and a 9-9 school schedule leaves little room for homework, so assignments have, unfortunately, piled up for this weekend. With my communications background the writing assignments are a snap, and the subject matter make them a lot of fun to write. The coding and photoshop-related assignments, however, are languishing. I'll tackle those tomorrow at our campus.
I'm pleased to say that this ridiculously busy week transformed me into a full believer in the school. The instructors are largely very passionate about what they're doing, and we are being crammed full of knowledge. Better, that knowledge is immediately tested with practical assignments in class—group work, mostly—and then individual assignments due the evening before our next class. If you keep up with it and always aim to do a little bit more than what is asked, you'll learn a lot.
Let's talk about one of my first assignments. I was required to brainstorm 25-50 analog game concepts—high-level ideas for non-digital games based on an interesting theme, mechanic, or both. In a single train ride I powered through my first 10 with no trouble at all, with a couple of those being my faves of the bunch. The next ten were more challenging, and the last six (I settled on 26 quality ideas, rather than wrecking myself coming up with several throw-aways to meet my original goal of 30) were the toughest of all.
After our list was complete, we were expected to select five, one of which we will build—boards, pieces, instructions, and box—for the end of the term that is coming faster than we might think.
The process was pretty interesting, and got me thinking about different ways to play games. Almost all of my games were board games, with several card games, and only a couple of games that wouldn't really fit in either camp.
Here are some that I felt were interesting (but not my top five). The advice I have gotten from earlier intakes is that playtesting and scope management are the MOST important contributors to your game's success, so while I have some original ideas here, I left them out because I either have no idea to make them, or felt that their scope may be beyond my reach. I would rather create an extremely polished and fun twist on an idea that exists—a shiny portfolio piece—rather than have a neat but wonky original that I might be embarrassed to hide... time will tell.
Anyway, let me know what you think with a comment. Would you play any of these games? Got any ideas of your own?
I'm pleased to say that this ridiculously busy week transformed me into a full believer in the school. The instructors are largely very passionate about what they're doing, and we are being crammed full of knowledge. Better, that knowledge is immediately tested with practical assignments in class—group work, mostly—and then individual assignments due the evening before our next class. If you keep up with it and always aim to do a little bit more than what is asked, you'll learn a lot.
Let's talk about one of my first assignments. I was required to brainstorm 25-50 analog game concepts—high-level ideas for non-digital games based on an interesting theme, mechanic, or both. In a single train ride I powered through my first 10 with no trouble at all, with a couple of those being my faves of the bunch. The next ten were more challenging, and the last six (I settled on 26 quality ideas, rather than wrecking myself coming up with several throw-aways to meet my original goal of 30) were the toughest of all.
After our list was complete, we were expected to select five, one of which we will build—boards, pieces, instructions, and box—for the end of the term that is coming faster than we might think.
The process was pretty interesting, and got me thinking about different ways to play games. Almost all of my games were board games, with several card games, and only a couple of games that wouldn't really fit in either camp.
Here are some that I felt were interesting (but not my top five). The advice I have gotten from earlier intakes is that playtesting and scope management are the MOST important contributors to your game's success, so while I have some original ideas here, I left them out because I either have no idea to make them, or felt that their scope may be beyond my reach. I would rather create an extremely polished and fun twist on an idea that exists—a shiny portfolio piece—rather than have a neat but wonky original that I might be embarrassed to hide... time will tell.
Anyway, let me know what you think with a comment. Would you play any of these games? Got any ideas of your own?
1. Forge is a board or card game where players gather ore, hire helpers, and stoke their fires to create the highest-quality weapons and armor required by heroes. Loan your wares to heroes and win (or lose) by their skill and deeds.
1. In Guzzler you use liquid water in an analog puzzle game, where, at certain times, specified amounts of water are added to the playspace to raise puzzle pieces into place. Doing it wrong means the pieces are trapped and you lose.
1. Old Folks Games is a board game where each player draws a cranky old codger as their avatar, and each has a unique goal that they are trying to reach. Unfortunately, the trappings of Pearly Gates Old Folks Home (and the forgetful/senile nature of the characters) make forward motion very difficult. Misplaced glasses, frequent bathroom breaks, and cats eagerly seeking warm laps stand in the way of your goal.
1. Finger Climber is a vertical board game based on rock climbing where teams of two players need to plan their route and “climb” up the wall using the preset “hand” and “foot” holds (fingerholds). The non-climbing player acts as a belayer and spots holds for his straining partner.
1. In Keys and Locks players unravel clues and gather various keys to unlock the treasure chest. There are multiple keys and locks. At the end of the game players see whether the keys they have gathered will open the chest.
Monday 5 September 2011
Lessons From Week One
So, it's Monday. I just had to say goodbye to my wife at the airport. She was visiting for the weekend but has a contract to finish up back in Edmonton. She'll be rejoining me permanently here in New West in October. I have a handful of assignments on the docket and a week's worth of game design wisdom to share.
Let's start by mentioning that I am a critical person, and I have no trouble voicing my opinion and objectively taking care of business. These qualities (good and bad) are earned through having your work broken down and rebuilt, and allowing your ego to be bruised until you realize that it simply isn't the important issue. I need to remind myself that many of my classmates are fresh out of high school, or near enough, and they won't be used to a semi-professional workplace; If I want to stay friendly—and I do—I will need to be sensitive.
Also, in re-reading my last post I realized I was allowing a bad attitude to creep in and colour my outlook on some of those initial classes this past week. This will serve no one, and it's simply too early to judge. Besides, the school has to solve for the lowest common denominator, and (in my case) that means that the C# and Photoshop classes will feel a tad overwhelming at times, with me pulling a good deal of satisfaction (and maybe some boredom) from the classes focused on my strengths (creativity, communication, leadership). I'll correct this attitude starting right now. It'll help that I've almost entirely beaten the cold I am convinced I caught from one of the TAs. ;)
"Treat your time at VFS as a year-long job interview." We've heard this a few times from a few sources so far, and I think it's really good advice. Many of our instructors are working in the videogame industry right now—the class on Thursday was run by a passionate man who runs his own development studio in Burnaby, for example, and he's doing some interesting things with Augmented Reality Games that I'm looking forward to learning about. Other instructors, like the head of our program, have dozens or hundreds of contacts throughout the industry. We students need to earn the trust of those around us so they will want to pass on those opportunities or even recommend us. People like to hire people they like. It's my goal to be hired before I graduate.
I've been fortunate to meet and get to know several people working at BioWare these past few years, and I've heard from them that "fit" with the company culture is often as important as a person's skillset. After all, skills can be taught on the job, but having an open mind, a great attitude, and passion for your work usually come with the person. More good reasons to be the humble, outgoing, hard-working guy that consistently does good work.
Let's talk about specialization. Unless you are running the company (which is my far-flung goal), you are much more competitive in the job market to be the best at something specific. Outgoing generalists with an understanding of their entire product make pretty excellent leaders and project managers, but they'll never get hired to, say, be a concept artist when there are plenty of talented specialized concept artists out there. They'll also have trouble breaking into the industry without a good deal of experience behind them. So, while my goals include being a talented, generalist leader—running the show and bringing the amazing talents of others together to make incredible shared storytelling experiences for the public—I would be better served by specializing in one or two specific game design disciplines.
My writing background (and passion for storytelling) makes it pretty clear that I should focus on Game Story Writing (flavour text, dialogue, cinematics), but I also have some small artistic talent and a flair for creating dungeons and game encounters, which will lead me naturally to level design (though I have an uphill battle learning UDK and the other tools most level designers use). So, in one year, I will have a diploma in game design with a specializations in Game Story Writing and Level Design. I'll have to find out how (if) our specializations affect our certification.
As I gear up for week two I'm going to focus on beefing up my Photoshop and C# "skills" (through online tutorials and maybe asking one of the other students to walk me through a few things), maintaining an upbeat attitude, and NOT getting sick. For now, I have about 20 more analog game concepts I want to come up with. I'm getting some wacky ideas with a lot of potential to make excellent board/card games. :)
Happy gaming.
Let's start by mentioning that I am a critical person, and I have no trouble voicing my opinion and objectively taking care of business. These qualities (good and bad) are earned through having your work broken down and rebuilt, and allowing your ego to be bruised until you realize that it simply isn't the important issue. I need to remind myself that many of my classmates are fresh out of high school, or near enough, and they won't be used to a semi-professional workplace; If I want to stay friendly—and I do—I will need to be sensitive.
Also, in re-reading my last post I realized I was allowing a bad attitude to creep in and colour my outlook on some of those initial classes this past week. This will serve no one, and it's simply too early to judge. Besides, the school has to solve for the lowest common denominator, and (in my case) that means that the C# and Photoshop classes will feel a tad overwhelming at times, with me pulling a good deal of satisfaction (and maybe some boredom) from the classes focused on my strengths (creativity, communication, leadership). I'll correct this attitude starting right now. It'll help that I've almost entirely beaten the cold I am convinced I caught from one of the TAs. ;)
"Treat your time at VFS as a year-long job interview." We've heard this a few times from a few sources so far, and I think it's really good advice. Many of our instructors are working in the videogame industry right now—the class on Thursday was run by a passionate man who runs his own development studio in Burnaby, for example, and he's doing some interesting things with Augmented Reality Games that I'm looking forward to learning about. Other instructors, like the head of our program, have dozens or hundreds of contacts throughout the industry. We students need to earn the trust of those around us so they will want to pass on those opportunities or even recommend us. People like to hire people they like. It's my goal to be hired before I graduate.
I've been fortunate to meet and get to know several people working at BioWare these past few years, and I've heard from them that "fit" with the company culture is often as important as a person's skillset. After all, skills can be taught on the job, but having an open mind, a great attitude, and passion for your work usually come with the person. More good reasons to be the humble, outgoing, hard-working guy that consistently does good work.
Let's talk about specialization. Unless you are running the company (which is my far-flung goal), you are much more competitive in the job market to be the best at something specific. Outgoing generalists with an understanding of their entire product make pretty excellent leaders and project managers, but they'll never get hired to, say, be a concept artist when there are plenty of talented specialized concept artists out there. They'll also have trouble breaking into the industry without a good deal of experience behind them. So, while my goals include being a talented, generalist leader—running the show and bringing the amazing talents of others together to make incredible shared storytelling experiences for the public—I would be better served by specializing in one or two specific game design disciplines.
My writing background (and passion for storytelling) makes it pretty clear that I should focus on Game Story Writing (flavour text, dialogue, cinematics), but I also have some small artistic talent and a flair for creating dungeons and game encounters, which will lead me naturally to level design (though I have an uphill battle learning UDK and the other tools most level designers use). So, in one year, I will have a diploma in game design with a specializations in Game Story Writing and Level Design. I'll have to find out how (if) our specializations affect our certification.
As I gear up for week two I'm going to focus on beefing up my Photoshop and C# "skills" (through online tutorials and maybe asking one of the other students to walk me through a few things), maintaining an upbeat attitude, and NOT getting sick. For now, I have about 20 more analog game concepts I want to come up with. I'm getting some wacky ideas with a lot of potential to make excellent board/card games. :)
Happy gaming.
Thursday 1 September 2011
A Day in my Life as a Game Design Student
Hey there, it's been a little while. School is is picking up speed and I am already having a bit of trouble getting to everything I want to. As homework actually kicks in (it's light now on day four), I will need to have some excellent time-management structures in place. For now, it all feels a little bit crazy.
Our classes are three-hours long and never start earlier than 9:00AM, which is pretty great since my commute is 45 minutes door-to-door (walk-train-walk). However, the bad news is that we are scheduled to regularly have classes until 9:30PM (next week we make up for the long weekend by being at school until 9:30PM every night, on three of those four days we start at 9:00AM. It's just the way it is.
Today's classes started with Game Production at 9:00AM. I've heard from one student that he felt that production was basically just common sense, but I disagree; learning to manage your time and understand workflows and pipelines, and above all being a good leader—these are the farthest things from common sense. It was just an introduction this morning, so nothing was mind-blowing, but I did enjoy the class and learn some stuff already.
Hit a nearby Chinese food place for lunch (this is Chinatown, and there are MANY places like this one to choose from). The food was so-so, the service was poor, and they screwed up our order on top of all of that. I won't be going back.
This afternoon we had Cinematics/Storyboarding, which most people would recognize as being disciplines straight from the film industry. I'm pretty excited about this class as designing cinematics would be a great career, and I expect to do fairly well with my background with scriptwriting and film analysis.
We had a couple of hours between classes, so a group of us went into one of our game rooms and played Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Halo 3. Good times! I came to our class' computer lab to polish up some homework, and now I'm here writing this post, and it's class time in about 20 minutes.
This evening we have Analog Game Theory (board games, card games, etc.), which I am a little leery of. On our first day of classes we had a double-block of this, so we basically played Diplomacy as a class for five–six hours. I'll hold my opinions for now since it's so early, but I'm not quite convinced that was a good use of our time, and this education is too expensive to waste a single minute.
I'll get home tonight around 10:30PM, and tomorrow it'll all start again.
More later. Class time.
Our classes are three-hours long and never start earlier than 9:00AM, which is pretty great since my commute is 45 minutes door-to-door (walk-train-walk). However, the bad news is that we are scheduled to regularly have classes until 9:30PM (next week we make up for the long weekend by being at school until 9:30PM every night, on three of those four days we start at 9:00AM. It's just the way it is.
Today's classes started with Game Production at 9:00AM. I've heard from one student that he felt that production was basically just common sense, but I disagree; learning to manage your time and understand workflows and pipelines, and above all being a good leader—these are the farthest things from common sense. It was just an introduction this morning, so nothing was mind-blowing, but I did enjoy the class and learn some stuff already.
Hit a nearby Chinese food place for lunch (this is Chinatown, and there are MANY places like this one to choose from). The food was so-so, the service was poor, and they screwed up our order on top of all of that. I won't be going back.
This afternoon we had Cinematics/Storyboarding, which most people would recognize as being disciplines straight from the film industry. I'm pretty excited about this class as designing cinematics would be a great career, and I expect to do fairly well with my background with scriptwriting and film analysis.
We had a couple of hours between classes, so a group of us went into one of our game rooms and played Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Halo 3. Good times! I came to our class' computer lab to polish up some homework, and now I'm here writing this post, and it's class time in about 20 minutes.
This evening we have Analog Game Theory (board games, card games, etc.), which I am a little leery of. On our first day of classes we had a double-block of this, so we basically played Diplomacy as a class for five–six hours. I'll hold my opinions for now since it's so early, but I'm not quite convinced that was a good use of our time, and this education is too expensive to waste a single minute.
I'll get home tonight around 10:30PM, and tomorrow it'll all start again.
More later. Class time.
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