Here I go again!

If you are going to be in San Francisco attending the Game Developer's Conference on March 23-27, make sure you attend my latest design talk: "Everything I learned about Level Design I learned from Disneyland"

Even if you know EVERYTHING about level design at least come for the pretty pictures of Disneyland. Who knows, you might even learn something!

And as always, the slides of the talk will be posted to this site after the show. Stay tuned!

What could have been: some Maximo 3 concepts

One of the games I almost worked on that I get asked most about is Maximo 3. Was there ever plans for a sequel? Was there ever code made? Was the storyline ever wrapped up? The answers are: Yes, Not to my knowledge and No.

As the second game ends with the promise of a third game (Maximo and his allies teaming up to find Queen Sophia) I thought it'd be fun to share some of the design notes I have left over from it. What makes it particularly interesting is that there are several coincidental parallels between what we were planning back in 2003 and what is found in the current Prince of Persia game.

I was lead designer on the project and the team was obviously influenced by the first Prince of Persia game that had come out that year. We had decided to set it in a Middle Eastern environment (What can I say? It was right after the invasion of Iraq - we all had the Middle East on our brains) and planned on pushing the already acrobatic nature of Maximo even further. Of course, there would be new weapons and mechanics and a new way of interacting with Grim, Maximo's best friend; who also happened to be the Grim Reaper.

I left Capcom in 2004 to go work on Sony's God of War not long after starting pre-production on the game. It was later cancelled and looking back on it now, it's not the direction I would go in if I had a chance to work on it again.

The battle claws are cool, but the story and the Middle Eastern environment just doesn't feel right anymore, the tone is just too grim (no pun intended) and there just are "not enough skeletons." Oh, and no way would I kill Tinker. Steampunk redheaded girls are just too hot!

Batman lands on Little Big Planet!

I love Batman and I love Little Big Planet. So what could be better than the two of them together? Check out images from my latest LBP level:





In what will probably be a mistake - mixing education with entertainment - I try to teach the player about the history of Batman while making them jump past all types of hazards. Fight baddies, collect goodies and drive the Batmobile!

You can play it too on Little Big Planet. Just search for:

The History of Batman Part 1 (1939-1949) PSN: MightyBedbug

Heart it if you like it!

Current Top Ten LBP levels

So I had written up a really detailed love letter to Little Big Planet - how much I really love playing the game, how great it looks, all the neat things it makes me research when making levels (Shadow Puppets, Turning devices, etc) - I put together images and lots of text... and then the blog tool crashed out.

So what I have instead is a Top Ten (OK, more than 10) list of really really cool LBP levels instead:

10. Star Wars PSN: shinta123 / Sack to the Future series (part 1, 2 and 3) PSN: Hymanator/Ghostbusters PSN:Stryden - These levels do what LBP does best - allows creators to make levels/homages to their favorite movies in the LBP/Sweded style. It's always fun to see what gets highlighted and left out. The Sack to the Future levels also features some very clever asset switching - some of which I'm still scratching my head over.

9. Burning with Dinosaurs PSN:Blue-Alloy/Fly me to the moon... PSN:thespaff - Two levels that show of the charm of the LBP graphics - allowing creators to make beautiful themed levels that feel like they've leapt off the wall of a kindergarten class.

8. Duck Hunt from the NEW - NEW GAMEPLAY PSN:shiftshift/Libidius.jp PSN: RRR30000 - Two levels that really show off the flexability of the LBP engine - both shooters in this case and both based on classic game - Duck Hunt and Gradius.

7. Little Dead Space PSN:DarknessBear - fantastic use of light and sound. A little light on gameplay but really rich on atmosphere.

6. Tick Tock Clock 2.0.1 (Episode 1) PSN:TOBSn08 - An extremely complex and playable level, Tick Tock Clock also looks very nice.

5. Jack McSetback & the Spikey Stone of Doom PSN: Wyth - The best of the "temple" levels I've seen - the gameplay is very solid and there are some nice touches, especially the use of realistic physics to trigger the temple's traps.

4. Sackhouette - Forest King's Request - PSN:Luckett_X - Luckett has mastered the "Patapon" silouette style and I'll be damned if I know how he does it. He has several in the series and be warned, they are all hard as nails. But really pretty to look at.

3. 300 Spartans - PSN:branditimus (also Escape the Burning Building) branditimus' levels are very straight forward, almost traditional, but he comes up with very clever ideas and visuals that make you forget that you're playing LBP. I'm looking forward to seeing what he does next.

2. World of Colour - PSN:geosautus - (also Mad Mansion) - geosautus really understands not only what it takes to make a good playable level, but also does some neat trickery with reward systems. He is one of the LBP communities' most solid creators.

1. The Comic Book Adventures of Super Sackboy! - PSN:MightyBedbug - OK, this one is mine, but it's my blog! If you liked "Comic Zone" and fighting giant robots, then you'll like this. Make sure to heart me! Also keep your eyes open for my next one coming soon: The History of Batman part 1 1939 - 1949.

Growcube

If you haven't already, you should play Growcube - a highly addictive puzzle game. Using no dialogue whatsoever, the game is extremely clear (and yet not, as that is the nature of the game) and it is completely adorable. The creator also made the excellent Grow RPG for those of you who like a little Dn'D with your puzzles.

Boo!

Did I scare you? Good.

While I haven't made any scary games (yet) I have played a lot of them and think I have a pretty good idea of what does and doesn't make a game scary. You know the general list of what makes a good horror game: Building mood and suspense, foreshadowing of threat to the player, and the critical importance of lighting, music and sound design.

But rather than talking about how Survival Horror is a dying breed (like in Leigh Alexander's excellent article) let's look instead at the some things found in survival horror games that really don't make it scary.

The filthy room



I don't suffer from Rhypophobia (fear of filth) but developers who make horror games sure seem to. Look at the image above. Silent Hill doesn't need a brave hero to defeat it's demonic inhabitants, it needs a Merry Maid and a tanker truck full of disinfectant. I just don't find dirt terrifying. What make befouled lavatories so scary are the smell and having to touch something: Two senses that are completely absent from a video gamer's "vocabularly". I'm sure the intention is to implied that the location is abandoned or old but it just comes off as a texture artist making the most use of their bump maps.

Decorating with blood and corpses



OK. We get it. There are horrible monsters here. They will kill people. And they will be trying to kill me next. However, what is supposed to be horrifying comes off as predictable and in some cases, strangely comedic. I picture a zombie taking time to pose a corpse strung up on a wall "just so." "Does this look good?" Says the zombie. "It's a little crooked" says his undead pal. "Howabout now?" says the first zombie straightening the body out a little... I thought monsters were supposed to eat people, not decorate with them? And what's even worse is when there are copious amounts of blood splashed all over the place. The human body does hold 6 quarts of blood, but come on!




Does the above image below look like enough blood to paint an entire room? You'd be lucky to get two walls covered out of that. And believe me, I've tried.

Zombies



I love zombies. I play every zombie game, watch every zombie movie, but I think people are too used to zombies. The sight of a rotted animated corpse is just too common place these days. Besides, the real impact that zombies have never been explored in a video game - that zombies are our loved one back from the dead. The emotional struggle that happens between wanting to not let go of our dearly departed or shoot them through the head. There are plenty of movies that play off of this theme (Pet Semetary, Sean of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead) but in games, zombies are just filler. Either targets to be shot or masses to show off how cool the instance code is. As the gaming industry isn't able (or has tried) to attain that emotional chord, I think the feeling is that zombies don't have much to offer anymore. Even Resident Evil, the "king" of the zombie games, is going with mutated foreigners rather than the living dead.

I'm looking forward to Dead Space, Resident Evil 5 and Silent Hill Homecoming so maybe there are some good original scares for me in the near future!

Happy Halloween!

The Platformer Primer

Little Big Planet will turn everyone into a platform game designer - however, it might not make them a good game designer.

So here is a primer on platform games I've put together for anyone who wants to make their game a little better or, more importantly, a little fairer. Enjoy!