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If they offend you, then I apologize. However, if you are interested in buying any of the excellent products listed below, do me a solid and click on the link below. I get a very small portion of the profit from Amazon if you do and I have a very bad video game habit to support. :)

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BLURST!

Thanks to the fine folks at Kotaku, I have discovered a new game site. http://www.blurst.com/ has several fine looking games with themes that only games on the interwebs can provide.



Minotaur China Shop (from Flashbang studios) might be the first "Man vs. himself" game I've ever played. You play a huge Minotaur who owns a china shop, helping other anthropamorphized customers buy the mug or grecian urn of their dreams. However, you move around like... well, like a bull in a china shop. Each time you accidently blunder into a cabinet and break something, you get more incensed with rage. You can either give into the rage, destroy the place and collect the insurance, or calm yourself with deep breathes and continue with your day. Something I think many of us can relate to.

An absolutely fantastic concept that reaffirms my idea that you can make anything into gameplay. Well done, Flashbang!

Galaga!

I read a new story today about an Australian fellow breaking the world's record for Galaga and it reminded me of a story early in my career:

I was working for Namco during the mid-90's and I was sent to Japan to help out with some design work on an arcade game (IIRC, it was Tekken 2)

When I got to Namco's Yokohama tower office, I was given a tour including the arcade division where I'd be helping out. Their offices were small tables (the kind you'd find in elementary schools) literally wedged between gutted arcade cabinets, filing cabinets and fire-hazard stacks of old paperwork. I had heard Japanese work spaces were small, but our American cubicles were luxurous compared to these work spaces.

In one of these tiny spaces, I was introduced to a Japanese planner ("Planner" is the Japanese term for designer) who, as I was told, had worked for Namco for "a very long time." I asked him (via translator) what games he had worked on and he listed several off including... Galaga.

I bowed very deeply to the planner, telling him how much I loved the game as a child (to the amusement of the other employees with us) and the planner made a "don't go anywhere" motion with hands as he rushed back to his "office."

He returned with a stack of yellowing graph paper which he started to flip through. After a second, I realized he was showing me the ORIGINAL DESIGNS of Galaga! It was amazing to see the whole game on paper: the ship patterns, the controls especially the famous capture mechanic!

I felt like I had been allowed to touch the Declaration of Independance of gaming. It was quite an amazing experience!

I'm so excited and I just can't hide it...

This Friday, I have been invited to present my "Everything I Learned About Level Design, I Learned at Disneyland" talk to Disney's Imagineers.

As a life-long Disneyland fan, this is a HUGE honor for me - but I can't help worrying that they already know everything I have to say. After all, they built all of it.

Wish me luck!

Even 7 years later, Maximo gets great reviews!

Dave Siller, a great designer and one of my favorite bosses, pointed this out to me - a review of Maximo: Ghost to Glory for the PS2 in the latest issue of Edge. As you may know, Edge is a UK video game magazine with a reputation for being a tough game rater.

Imagine my surprise when they published a glowing review of the game seven years later! Imagine my surprise when I saw my Maximo 3 designs published in the article! (I wonder which blog-o-site they got those from? :P Next time, howabout a credit guys?!)

It's nice to see this game get some love - if you haven't played it, I highly recommend it. It still holds up even after all of this time.

Sorry I'm late!

This summer has been super-exciting with lots of great things happening! Unfortunately, none of them have been blogging. I apologize to any loyal readers (if you are still out there!) but I'll be getting some fun posts together soon.

In the meantime, my "Best of E3":

Split Second (Black Rock Studio/Disney Interactive)
Batman: Arkham Asylum (Rocksteady/WBIE)
Darksiders (Vigil, THQ)
Zombie Apocalypse (I think that's what it was called - it is an PS3 or XBOX live game that reminded me of Robotron)
Brutal Legend (Double Fine, EA)

All of these games had playable demos that were fun and easy to play. I'm looking forward to playing the final versions of all of these.

I would have put Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction (Ubisoft Montreal) on my top five list had there actually been playable code (well, playable if I were a member of the press) - there are lots of cool innovations that I'm looking forward to trying out.

Overall the show was competent and it was great to see an E3 that wasn't lame but there was no single "OH MY GOD I HAVE TO OWN THIS NOW!" game.

I think the industry is recovering from 2008 and we'll start seeing more of the super-star games in 2010 when the teams that makes the big hits (Nintendo's Mario and Link teams, Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica, Kojima, etc.) are reaching alpha with their "whatever's next"

Did you see any games that you liked? Tell me about them!

E3 is back!

I love E3!

I've attended every one (with the except of the last two lamE3's) and I have to admit, I love the crowds, I love the noise, I love getting my hands on games months before they come out.

Some of the games I'm looking forward to getting my hands on?


Batman: Arkham Asylum (what Batman fan isn't looking forward to this?)


The Saboteur (very intrigued by the "color system" and the 30's setting)


God of War III (Still have lots of friends at Sony working on this one and they're very excited about it. Looking forward to seeing what they've made!)


Bayonetta (Come on, the lead character loses clothes with damage ala Maximo, has guns in her stilletto heels and can turn her hair into a giant monster! What's not to like?)


Red Dead Redemption (Always liked the original - even when it was a Capcom game - and I'm a big fan of the genre.)


Assassin's Creed II (The first game was pretty good, but I'm hoping that the second will solve many of the pacing and game play issues I had with the first.)


Brutal Legend (I have a lot of respect for Double Fine's Tim Schafer and always end up really liking his games. I assume this one will not be an exception)


Darksiders (I didn't work on it, but I have played some of it, and it definately feels like the heir to Maximo. Some great combat mechanics and the horse is very cool!)

Which games are you looking forward to seeing/playing at E3?

If you happen to be at E3, be sure to swing by the THQ booth. Not only do we have some kick-ass games this year, but you can say "hi" to me! I'll be manning the Drawn to Life Wii demo every morning.

See you there!

Very Short Game Review - BIOSHOCK

Hey all, I'm instituting a new feature here at Mr. Boss' Design Lair - the VSGR - or very short game review. Hope you enjoy it!



GAME: Bioshock
Developer: 2K games
Publisher: 2K games
System played on: XBOX 360

BIOSHOCK is a FPS that has three great things going for it. 1) Great 1920's/30's art and sound design (which is odd 'cause the game is set in 1960), 2) Some cool upgradable weapons and power-ups (However, I really only used the Shotgun and the Electro Bolt) and 3) very high production values. Oh, and it has a pretty decent story, I guess. Though I don't know why anyone in their right mind would want to have tanky deep sea divers armed with Arnold Schwarzenegger's gun from "Eraser" walking the halls of your underwater city with GLASS WALLS! Ok, that's four things.

What I didn't like: The game made a bad first impression on me. Originally I didn't buy the "slow down the pipe dream" plasmid so those were impossible. Also, it always seemed like enemies were blind-siding me with attacks which is why they must have put in the "ow! Where did that shot come from?" HUD device. And I never read the story-enhancing audio tapes. After minding these things the second time around, I found it enhanced my play experience.

In General?: I liked it. Enough to finish? Not sure. But I think it's worthy of the respect the industry has shown to it and hope others will take it's lead - especially in the gestalt department. (which is next to the lingerie department)

Are you a responsible game designer?

I've recently been thinking about all the little things that can go wrong on a project and all the things that can be avoided early.

One developer I was talking to was telling me how they lost several days of production time just reorganizing the naming conventions of their files. Imagine being half way done with a project and realizing that you have to go back and rename EVERYTHING in the game? A nightmare.

So I thought of a few things to keep in mind when starting a game in regards to naming files and some other things...

1) Keep it to eight characters if possible.

I can't remember which programmer I worked with told me about this, but he said that any file larger than eight characters actually took up more memory. I don't know if I believe him, but I do know that several programs will only display the first 8 characters leaving you with a file that looks like this:

AirWorld...

AirWorld what? Air World War two? Air World Level five? Air World Enemy one? It could be anything.

2) Come up with an easy to understand shorthand for file names.

Make a consistent legend of abbreviations to name files. Air World could be "Air" or "AW" or even "A" - just make sure you don't create redundant named files. I found it's useful to name things phonetically. If you're not sure about how to name something, think of it like a personalized license plate. "Level Designer" becomes "LVLDSGNR".

Just don't get cute and name things using 8 for "ate" or something like that. Naming conventions are not a puzzle for the other team members to figure out. Otherwise your files will end up reading like the titles of Prince songs.

3) Group files accordingly.

OK, I'm guilty of this one. Having well organized files that separate various design assets is really important not only to you but to your co-workers. Generally organize files by stages of production (concept, pre-production, production) and/or by components of information (level maps, character, feedback) You should always ask yourself, "if I were to die tomorrow, would my team be able to find the results of my design work?"

This, of course, is even more important when creating assets to be used in game. Asset management software like Alien Brain, DevTrack, Perforce and Subversion can make or break your project's production. Pick the right one for you and make sure everyone uses it. And backup files often. (daily if not more!)

Speaking of files, there's one other area that gets neglected by teams during pre-production...

4) For God's sake, get those cheats working early!

Getting your cheat camera up and running early is one of the best things you can do for your production. Not only will it help you develop camera postitioning during grayboxing your levels, but also you can use it to help block out "puppet shows" for cinematics. It's extremely invaluable for creating videos and capture screens for marketing purposes. Remember, other people are going to eventually going to want these kinds of assets and they don't want to play through the entire game to get to that one cool spot in the level.

The same is true for player character cheats. Invulnerability, the ability to "fly" your character around, ammo adds, health adds, money adds, the ability to turn powers, weapons and abilities on and off are very important to get in as soon as possible. Not only does it make it easier for you to play and test your levels, but it allows you to show off your levels in the best possible light when your head of production or that guy from the press comes around.

Make sure your level cheats (the ones that take you from one world/level/location/checkpoint) to another is in early as well and MORE IMPORTANTLY easy to access. Don't make the player/tester have to enter the "Capcom code" just to bring up a level or feature. Make it as user friendly as possible. I know it's something that the final product will never see, but you will be living with this game for a year or two or three and getting around it easily will allow you the time to concentrate on the good stuff like design.

5) Make sure you communicate all of the above to everyone on the team.

It's easy to assume that everyone is keeping up with what you are doing, but make sure that this information is easy to find, easy to read and easy to understand. Just because you ARE writing "stereo instructions" doesn't mean it has to read like them.

Good luck!

Talk video up at the GDC Vault!

The moment you may or may not have been wating for has arrived!

The video (with corresponding slides) of "Everything I learned about level design I learned from Disneyland" is now up at the GDC Vault.

However, I don't know if acces to the video is limited to those with all-access passes.

Anyway, here's the video!

Enjoy!