8000 hits. Reflection.

The more you blog and read others, the more you learn. In my megalomaniac plans to conquer the world of game design, this particular blog had to be a place where puny readers, would worship and praise my glorious mastery. Instead, people come here for some silly reasons, like half naked girls. Time to facepalm, it is another defeat. But this war shall be won by ME! I swear on my pants!!

Reflection Uno: don't compete with media hype. use it. 

Games like Halo or Whitcher, have an AAA rating, and millions in their PR and media budget. Not surprisingly majority of searches goes for those subjects. If I'd go for money making scheme for this blog, I'd have create a blogged version of a "X-box magazine". Or what i accidentally did, take juicy bits of hype and share it here, wait for visitors pouring in thus providing the reason for putting up with google ads. However as one hype, overtakes another, i'd probably get lost in repeated praises for just another blockbuster.

Reflection Secundo: understand needs of your reader. if you care. 

Writing on game design, and especially on how things are developed and organised, how creative process works, or what life events game designer is going through, is a thankless job. First of all, very few specialists are interested in that and even less care. Simply because it's generally considered a normality, not an unusual thing for those who create it. Whose who study it develop their own, niche or caste stories, understood mostly by comrades in profession. Occasionally this is spilled around with hype for another game. 

However what ordinary people are looking for, and gamers especially, is analysis of what game does, and how can they use it for their own purposes, new shiny things, rules updates, reviews. Surprisingly, my post on Boarding Marines is one of the most popular in my blog, simply because it gives an answer to people's question and saves them money (hopefully). My general ramblings on how things work, or why, remain outside of the request. So again, write stuff what is a useful to others, but don't be surprised if majority does not care.

Reflection Tercio: learn from your enemies. thats how you conquer the world. 

Yep. Sadly reading other blogs, and marketing books helps. Bastards! They stole all my magnificent ideas! Outrageous! Writing your own stuff and achieving goals works even better. Because you actually work the path of development, instead of reading how it should be done. But anyway prepare.... 

Reflect and rewind: Lessons learned from this blog

So I have left my blog for sometime in order to rethink and analyse what have been done, achieved and what mistakes I've made during this journey so far.

First and obvious success is that this blog allowed me to show other people my Elysian Drop troops codex. The biggest difficulty at the moment is get a feedback on it. I consider a full scale column dedicated to brave Drop troopers of the Imperium. It might be an interesting project but it might take me away from other priorities.

Second odd achievement is unexpected popularity if femme fatales. It started simply as a joke and mean to relax after writing a "profound" article or two, but visitations show that Cortana and Sarah Kerrigan are more popular than half a page of text mumbled out by your truly. Perhaps this shows that my blog does not have a certain audience in mind, plan, product if you like. Yes. This blog is truly is an experiment and attempt to find out how it works. Setting a goal, working out search engine optimisation and spreading my "incredible" creations is not currently a priority or a plan for world dominance. Perhaps it should?

Third biggest realisation is that blogging is simpler than it looks. Blogging in order to get into the top 10 - is not. Its business wich demands a lot of effort, time, skill and investment. After all, you sell to people meaning of life, answer to their needs and generally take their lifetime by creating something out of words, cultural and psychological tricks.

Well whats next?

Rethinking of what this blog is going to be.
Learning on how to make this blog useful in one or another way.
Making it work.

In the meantime I will post some more girls from the games :)
 
    

Revelation of the Day: Corporate culture matters

It happened again! After a prolonged internal work i spit out a short article about game designers way to glory and riches and then couple of hours later I find that it all been know before and even published. Sad face, but at least i understand that my search has its reasons and meaningful answers. I found an incredible article about birth, growth and fall of Wizards of the Coast written by John Tynes. If you my reader, knew who is it, you knew more than i did.

The article itself is here : http://www.salon.com/2001/03/23/wizards/
and its second part here http://www.salon.com/2001/03/26/wizards_part2/  

John Tynes however is described by wikipedia in following article:

John Tynes (born 1971) is a writer best known for his work on role-playing games such as Unknown Armies, Delta Green, Puppetland, and for his company Tynes Cowan Corporation. Under its imprint Pagan Publishing, Tynes Cowan Corp. produces third-party books for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game under license from Chaosium as well as fiction and non-fiction books under its imprint Armitage House.

Following the end of Unknown Armies in 2003,^[1] Tynes withdrew from the tabletop gaming industry in order to pursue other interests, particularly film^[2] and videogames.^[3] He was the producer of Pirates of the Burning Sea, a massively-multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Flying Lab Software and published in 2008 by Sony Online Entertainment. After the launch of PotBS, he joinedMicrosoft Game Studios to work on various Xbox Live Arcade titles including South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play!,^[4] Toy Soldiers,^[5] and Full House Poker^[6] as a producer and game designer. 

But my God, his style of write up is brilliant! That's the no-nosense, objective truth in your face without the corporate politeness and glamour. Geeks are geeks, and money making is money making. The hard reality is there and you can actually see how different approaches to same business clash and create another evil Mega-Corporation from a very different idea.

We were young, overeducated and underemployed. Wizards was my first job in the real world — if you can call it that — and I was hardly alone.Above all, we were equals. Peter Adkison told us so. He had left Boeing with a sacrament of buzzwords and platitudes that he transmuted into full-bore Utopian evangelicalism. We would work in organic cross-departmental teams, study the esoteric principles of “Continuous Quality Improvement,” and always strive toward the paramount goal of consensus, the magical process that somehow replaced old-school hierarchical decision making. 

I guess today is my day of revelation.

Yours,
Mark-Paul Severn
An Enlightened Megalomaniac with Corporate ambitions.
(muhahaha)

Dream job description

Innogames, company behind the the Best Strategy Browser MMO of 2013 -  Forge of Empires has a job offer. Dream job for someone I guess. I read that and and Dostoevsky question goes through my head.

Am I good enough or...

Game Designer (m/f)

InnoGames, based in Hamburg, is one of the leading developers and operators of online games with more than 100 million registered players around the world. We have been characterized by dynamic growth ever since the company was founded in 2007. In order to further expand our success and to realize new projects, we are constantly looking for young talents, experienced professionals, and creative thinkers.

Your Tasks

• Development of game processes
• Drafting new game features and game events
• Drafting the menu navigation
• Balancing game contents
• Drafting game texts
• Documentation for developers and graphic artists
• Actively monitoring the market and analyzing the competition

Requirements

• A degree (e.g. in media informatics or business informatics), or comparable training
• Comprehensive knowledge of and demonstrable experience (through work experience or projects) in the field of game design
• A good understanding of mathematics, and a distinct ability to thing logically
• Basic knowledge in graphics software and programming
• A passion for online games (browser, mobile)
• Profound experience in playing browser games, and knowledge about the games market
• Knowledge of good menu promt and user guidance
• Very good knowledge of English
• A high degree of individual initiative and commitment
• Good communication skills, and the ability to work in a team

We Offer

• Constantly new challenges and projects in a sound and constantly growing company with flat hierarchies
• Responsibility and creative tasks, including a high degree of professional freedom for your own ideas
• A very good atmosphere in an intercultural environment, focused on teamwork
• Flexible working hours (core time 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.), and many team events
• Supporting and contributing to the company retirement arrangement
• Further training on a regular basis, and a flat rate for reference books
• Supporting your move to Hamburg (e.g. through temporarily staying at our company apartment, and allround support if moving here from abroad)
• Funding your parking spot on the premises, or your ticket for local public transport
• Preventive health care
• Creative breaks, e.g. during table soccer, at the PlayStation, or in a beach chair outside
• Complementary soft drinks and fresh fruit for all employees

Taken from here: http://corporate.innogames.com/en/jobs/offer/job/show/Job/game_designer_mf.html

Informational overdose

One must keep your lust for knowledge and achievement in check. I did not. I kept reading all blogs of game-designers and game production subjects i could concentrate on. When i was not reading I was watching game videos, behind the scenes, (especially HALO) as well as new releases.

Why?

Its interesting question. My eyes can't focus, they hurt, light must be dimmed and head is buzzing with all new hot stuff and ideas about how to make my perfect game. But i have not wrote a single line in any of my current projects for almost a month. I needed to see that big picture of how is it in that glamorous world of game industry, simply because writing and developing stuff by yourself is like talking to a mirror: complimenting but not real.

My headaches will pass, but already this informational overdose have done some good things: simple reality check that showed me that being a lone-wolf-freelancer is far far away from AAA world class projects with hundreds of people creating them and millions to back them. The scale and quality of these projects is not a thing to compete against, but a destination to go to. But even these monsters start with a spark of idea and determination of game designer. For now, i need a painkiller....         

Designing the game is not an 8 hour job

I have stumbled on this article while googleing. It struck me with something both 
honest and gruesome so I took it for my blog as a note to self. Original is here
http://boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/13867/designing-the-game-is-not-8-hours-job  

 

I don't know how other designers work. I don't know if I am a freak among designers or I am a clasical example. But I want to tell you how it looks. How it looked with Robinson. I spent last year on the Island. Really...

*

For me 2012 was year of Robinson Crusoe because for the last 12 months I only read adventure books. I really mean it. I read a lot of Julius Verne novels. I read all novels I could find about castaways. I read all books about survival I could find. I read also comic books and I – certainly – watched all movies I could find that were about deserted Island or castaways.

I read about tens of ways of making fire. I read about building shelter from almost nothing. I read how to find water, I read how to find north without compas, I read everything I could. I am – with no doubt – one of the most educated persons on this planet... in terms of castaways...

If, by any chance, you are on the deserted Island, just call me. I will teach you how to survive. You don't need to worry.

*

For me 2012 was year of Robinson Crusoe because every single weekend of this year I had prototype of the game set up in our living room. Our home was literally paralyzed by Robinson. The game is big, it covered nearly whole table in our living room (I have to say – we have a big table). Because of Robinson we had mess on that table for every single weekend of 2012. I played it all the time, every single weekend, I drove my wife crazy with this tokens, cards, notes, dice with all that stuff that was living with us this year.

It was like part of our furniture. We had sofa, we had table, we had chairs and we had Robinson. It was part of our everyday life.

*

2012 was year of Robinson Crusoe for my whole family. Kids have grown – it is a year of time! - and they saw and hear all the time about Robinson. They discovered this story. They played prototype with me. They played live Robinson all the time. They built real shelter in our garden (ok, I helped them a little), they spent countless hours in our garden hunting imaginary beasts, strengthening the roof or searching for treasures. With no doubt, if in 20 years I ask my kids about summer 2012, they will tell 'It was time of Robinson'.

*

2012 was year of Robinson Crusoe because it really touched our every day life. We spent holidays this year by the sea and of course I had Robinson with me. Game was with us all the time. Sometimes it touched our life in a funny way. I remember one Sunday few weeks ago. I was a little bit late for a dinner, I entered the room, all kids were already eating and there was no plate for me on the table. I asked: 'Hey, what about me? I don't eat?!'

And I heared answer from 10 years old Nina: 'You know, it is like in Robinson. There is never enought food... Today you get 2 wounds'

Woow. That was accurate...

*

Next week I am in Essen. My adventure with Robinson ends. I finally leave the Island. I am finally free. I spent here whole year of my life. It was great but that's enough. It is time for you to visit the Island. I strongly recommend it. This is a great adventure.

Sci-fi is dead.

I'm probably wrong by stating that, but I  have a serious reason. The reason is book of science fiction novel and short stories published back in 1954. I found it and bought it. It smells of old times, a truly old and forgotten era and this aroma brings me a memories I never could have. Memories of world were scientist became the preachers of the new ways of life, new products to consume, new tools to develop and bombs to drop on your enemies.

But most of all, scientist were writing! The stuff they were writing was so different from the established genres and the ways of building up the story that they actually gave birth to a science fiction. That is even despite the fact that similar motifs of progress, technology and incredible achievements were used before industrialization. Suddenly the old fairy tales got a chance of rebirth and what's more important they became believable! If a fairy tale is coming from someone who actually knows how world operates, the fairy tale becomes a prediction, and prediction has a chance to become reality.

But now more than 50 years after the peak of science-fiction this credibility is lost. The world described by previous generation of writers is already here and we are fed up happy with it. We may not fly around galaxy in reality, but there's enough TV show's to give us a clue how it's going to look. Real scientist are doing their day-to-day research and let professional writers to elaborate on "setting", characters and plots. If there is not enough explosions or pretty half-naked scientist we easily may change the channel to find something more like it.

Sci-fi is a mainstream entertainment. It is dead. 

Why? Originally science fiction was answering to the questions and needs of those who was trying to adjust to rapidly changing world and find their own path in the new world. It was half soul searching half explanation of how-to-use-the-world around you for generation whose parents still lived in pre-space age. Author's used it as test bed for ideas, visions and what would happen scenarios. (Of course the usual way of sci-fiing the metaphor wasn't lost.) As the popularity of genre grew, along with profits the need to print something similar to competitor's product attracted writers who used science as a background instead of meaning. This pro-pulsed the trend, which caught up and overtook the initial humble stories by those writing scientist. And now, anyone can write about hyper space jump over galaxy but few know how to fix the kettle.

        


  

Apocalypse vs. Boredom

Ever since human being realized that they are mortal the idea of Apocalypse have emerged. However only Christian tradition have taken this idea to its extremes and made it popular and well know to every brain they could reach. Religions of India and Far East do not use excessive fear of Doomsday, Judgment Day and Savior as a last hope.  They postulate concept of everlasting and ever-changing world in general. I'd like to stop my reference to religions and philosophical practices at this point, to avoid going astray.   

Like it or not, Apocalypse is used and re-used countless times in movies, books and other cultural references. It is part of any European cultural understanding of world, and majority of  other cultures at least understand what do we mean by Apocalypse.

In game design however it has became an ultimate answer to boredom and i think the ultimate excuse in setting development. Whenever you need to portray dark, hopeless future/past or situation and therefore justify the need of exterminating the opponent "A" in various forms is present. To bring some popular examples which allows player to act out of mundane life restrictions: 

1) the War, which wipes out humanity and finally allows us to kill everything that moves,

2) invasion of horrible aliens - no sentiment here, get out of my lawn you alien/nazi punk!,

3) zombie horde - I will remain alive-white-human-armed-with-shotgun no matter the cost!

4) we made it - human activity finally screwed everything on the planet. Yuppi! Its shotgun time!

5) personal "A" - they killed my dog/family/canary/planet/tentacle choose appropriate, guess what's gonna happen.

6) Not on my shift! - apparently the "A" is about to happen and player must stop it using lots of bullets and pressing the red button in the end.  

I may have missed some interpretations of Apocalypse in games but the point of "A" remains the same: give a player an excuse to act without thinking too deep why he is doing it, a strong emotional anchor that he not only pressing the right button, but he is making something IMPORTANT. Some players may bluntly ignore the storyline, especially in FPS games or table-top war-games where primary activity is concentrated around annihilating opponent, but the reasoning why has been done before the game begin: my action matters.  

Accordingly, the bigger the threat of "A" the more important player should feel himself, when in fact he has not even left the sofa. The better the reasoning behind it the more people relate to matters of game and characters on the screen, the more real the Apocalypse becomes and more meaningful players actions become. 

After all how many chances we get to save the world in our mundane lives? That is the biggest catch of a really good and well-selling games (with exception of solitaire, perhaps :-) ). 

 

Oddly enough, computer games industry have outperformed movie industry in volume of sales by 2005 (i think),  a good proof that some real talents are going there to make this illusions believable and keep players occupied and happy.