GDM November 2009

2009·9.8 MB·English

by  UBM TechWeb

I N T E R V I E W : N I G H T S C R E A T O R N A O T O O H S H I M A
VOL16NO10NOVEMBER2009
T H E L E A D I N G G A M E I N D U S T R Y M A G A Z I N E
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POSTMORTEM
CCOONNTTEENNTTSS..11110099
22 5TH CELL'S SCRIBBLENAUTS VVOOLLUUMMEE 1166 NNUUMMBBEERR 1100
SCRIBBLENAUTS is a pie-in-the-sky concept come to life, and there's
a lot for developer 5th Cell to be proud of. Plus, in a game where the
object is to write anything and have it come to life on the screen,
what could go wrong? A whole lot, of course—from QA to localization DEPARTMENTS
to controls, all facts are laid bare.
By Joseph M. Tringali 2 GAME PLAN By Brandon Sheffield [EDITORIAL]
To Be Continued
FEATURES
4 HEADS UP DISPLAY [NEWS]
7 GAMING IN THE CLOUD Good Old Designs, Sense of Wonder Night 2009, and more.
Companies like OnLive and Gaikai are promising the gaming world
on a platter with cloud computing-supported game services. But 34 TOOL BOX By Zoltan Erdokovy and Bijan Forutanpour [REVIEW]
how viable is it, really? Programmer Jake Cannell takes a look at the Luxology's Modo 401, and Real Time Cameras book
technical and financial logistics behind this emerging space.
By Jake Cannell 38 THE INNER PRODUCT By Mick West [PROGRAMMING]
Jump To It
13 THE GAME DEVELOPER 50
In concert with our advisory board, we've highlighted 50 important 42 PIXEL PUSHER By Steve Theodore [ART]
achievements of the last year-or-so, and associated them with specific Most Likely to Succeed
persons in order to acknowledge individual work. It's no easy feat to
distill the work of many into a few names, but we attempted it here. 46 DESIGN OF THE TIMES By Damion Schubert [DESIGN]
By Brandon Sheffield, Jeffrey Fleming, and Simon Carless The Art of Fun
50 INTERVIEW: NAOTO OHSHIMA 49 AURAL FIXATION By Jesse Harlin [SOUND]
Ohshima is best known as the character designer for SONIC THE The Magic of Misdirection
HEDGEHOG and director of NIGHTS INTO DREAMS, and here we investigate
his motivations, thoughts, and his fascination with time. 56 ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT By Matthew Wasteland [HUMOR]
By Brandon Sheffield Stack Trace Industry Detective
COVER ART: EDISON YAN
WWW.GDMAG.COM 1
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GAME PLAN // BRANDON SHEFFIELD
www.gdmag.com
Think Services, 600 Harrison St., 6th Fl.,
San Francisco, CA 94107
t: 415.947.6000 f: 415.947.6090
HTOE BADEL CINONETINUED SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES
FOR INFORMATION, ORDER QUESTIONS, AND
ADDRESS CHANGES
t: 800.250.2429 f: 847.763.9606
RETHINKING PLAYER DEATH e: [email protected]
EDITORIAL
ARCADES HAVE BROUGHT US A LOT OF SIGNIFICANT are conceptually relevant. So many games employ PUBLISHER
Simon Carless l [email protected]
advances over the years. From the industry's outlandish sci-fi or fantasy scenarios that it seems
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
beginning through the mid-90s, arcades were still death could be explained away in simple terms—or Brandon Sheffield l [email protected]
where you’d find the best game graphics, and the even better, with some entertaining gameplay. PRODUCTION EDITOR
Jeffrey Fleming l [email protected]
best multiplayer experiences. A great many excellent Continues and their progeny are usually not a
ART DIRECTOR
design rules and guidelines were forged in these nuisance, they just seem unnecessary—evidence of Joseph Mitch l [email protected]
fires. Every so often though, I notice a trope carried the early framework around which games have evolved. CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
over from the arcade days that just doesn’t seem When a developer intends it, player deaths can be Jesse Harlin l [email protected]
Steve Theodore l [email protected]
to fit anymore. One of those is the concept of lives, entertaining, they just need to be given weight. If you Mick West l [email protected]
continues, and player death. don’t care if you die, the stakes of play seem rather Soren Johnson l [email protected]
Damion Schubert l [email protected]
The thought occurred to me while playing TEENAGE minor. In LEFT 4 DEAD, you feel like you’re letting your
ADVISORY BOARD
MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: TURTLES IN TIME RE-SHELLED for teammates down, so death has weight. But in GEARS OF Hal Barwood Designer-at-Large
Xbox Live Arcade. I played with three friends, and aside WAR, which I otherwise like very much, death is just an Mick West Independent
Brad Bulkley Neversoft
from none of us being able to tell which character annoying setback, and I have to watch cut scenes again Clinton Keith Independent
we were about 75 percent of the time, I noticed that and traipse back across the same shattered landscape Bijan Forutanpour Sony Online Entertainment
Mark DeLoura Independent
the game defaulted to unlimited continues. Playing just to get killed again by the same stupid Troika.
Carey Chico Pandemic Studios
essentially amounted to mashing the attack button We’ve had articles in the magazine (see “Press A
and hoping for the best, with no real consequences to to Jump,” Game Developer, October 2009) that cite ADVERTISING SALES
death, though the game did keep a tally of who among death as a good time to provide positive feedback GLOBAL SALES DIRECTOR
Aaron Murawski e: [email protected]
my friends had died the most times. for players, and add tutorial hints. Considering the t: 415.947.6227
It really stuck with me—in a scenario in which fact that games are meant to be won, the player is MEDIA ACCOUNT MANAGER
death essentially means nothing, why have death at essentially invincible in the grand scheme of things, John Malik Watson e: [email protected]
t: 415.947.6224
all? Granted, this was a port of an arcade game, but a requiring, again, nothing more than perseverance
GLOBAL ACCOUNT MANAGER, EDUCATION
number of kids’ games operate under a similar basic and the occasional GameFaqs hint. Why not try AND RECRUITMENT
principle. Dying either places you right back where to create a game that contains similar challenges Gina Gross e: [email protected]
t: 415.947.6241
you were, or it does so until you run out of lives, and to standard games, but completely avoids death?
COORDINATOR, EDUCATION AND RECRUITMENT
then you continue and start at the beginning of the If the end result is the same, and meaningful (or Rafael Vallin e: [email protected]
level, lives fully restocked. The game is basically humorous) consequences aren’t built in, why is death t: 415.947.6223
testing your ability to complete the same actions even part of the equation? It isn’t really death, after ADVERTISING PRODUCTION
again and again, rather than your skill. Except in all, it’s really just the proverbial “flesh wound.”
PRODUCTION MANAGER
outlying cases, it’s testing your willingness to These days we have a buffer against death in Robert Steigleider e: [email protected]
persevere, and not to adapt. games anyway—most first- and third-person shooters
REPRINTS
have regenerative health, whether it makes sense for
WRIGHT'S REPRINTS
RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE the world or not. Once the player’s regenerative health Ryan Pratt e: [email protected]
» This extends in a mild way to the checkpoint is depleted, they crumple to the ground momentarily, t: 877.652.5295
systems in modern games. Most AAA games have only to have time magically rewound, with players THINK SERVICES
rid themselves of the idea of continues, or even the finding themselves transported to a very familiar CEO THINK SERVICES Philip Chapnick
concept of limited lives, but death is still not so much (usually identically instanced) checkpoint save state GROUP DIRECTOR Kathy Schoback
a punishment as it is a setback—you simply lose a from their recent past. CREATIVE DIRECTOR Cliff Scorso
CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER Anthony Adams
few minutes’ playing time, and probably learn some
strategies in the meantime. So why represent this as THE DEATH (OF MY INTEREST) AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT
“death,” rather than in some other way? It could well be » Of course if you’re not careful, alternate methods GROUP DIRECTOR Kathy Henry
e: [email protected]
because we’ve always done it that way, rather than for of “death” can be even more annoying. Lengthy LIST RENTAL Merit Direct LLC t: 914.368.1000
any reason anyone spent time thinking about. resurrection sequences (in fact cut scenes of any
MARKETING
DEMON’S SOULS is going to be a hot topic discussion kind) will take the player out of the action. Death- or
among alternative journalists and academics for some loss-related minigames need to be fun and relevant. SERVICES MARKETING COORDINATOR Laura Robison
e: [email protected]
time, perhaps rightly so—the way that game deals Almost any time not playing the game is time waiting
with death is well thought out, and actually has an to play the game—and that’s generally time wasted. UBM TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT
in-world reason behind it. If you die, your (weaker) Innovative ways of dealing with player death CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER David Levin
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Scott Mozarsky
soul must go out in search of demon souls with which aren’t just for the wacky indies, or the fringe CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER David Wein
to reclaim your physical body. In ASSASSIN’S CREED, titles—which is why I deliberately didn’t mention any. CORPORATE SENIOR VP SALES Anne Marie Miller
“death” is explained as a de-syncing of the player from High-end games are starting to change the way they SENIOR VP, STRATEGIC DEV. AND BUSINESS ADMIN. Pat Nohilly
SENIOR VP, MANUFACTURING Marie Myers
his host body in history. In PREY, players must fight deal with what lies beyond, and it seems high time
their way back from the valley of death, to reclaim that more developers start to confront their own (in-
their place among the living. Even Silicon Knights’ game) mortality.
drawn-out resurrection sequences in TOO HUMAN —Brandon Sheffield
2 GAME DEVELOPER | NOVEMBER 2009 WWW.CMPGAME.COM
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HEADS-UP DISPLAY
sense of wonder 2009
At the 2009 Tokyo Game Show, CESA held the second Sense Of Wonder Night, showcasing 10 presentations from creators of
interesting, innovative experimental games. This year saw 65 worldwide submissions, with ten games picked for creating a "sense
of wonder" by a judging committee that included noted shooter creator Kenta Cho, Enterbrain’s MAKER series producer Kenji Sugiuchi,
KATAMARI DAMACY creator Keita Takahashi, Vector’s Takashi Katayama, IGDA Japan’s Kiyoshi Shin, and the writer of this article (IGF
Chairman and Game Developer publisher Simon Carless).
BALL CARRY on the shadow of an object, the P
H
(TAKUYA ONO / JAPAN) physical object is moved. They O
TO
BALL CARRY from Takuya Ono noted, if you “use shadows for B
Y
was an experimental title made physical objects... when you J
E
in a week, where you roll a change the light, you change RIA
ball toward a goal by pressing your entire world.” SK
A
multiple keys on the keyboard to
make depressions in the ground. INCOMPATIBLE BLOCK
To move the ball from the left to (JUN FUJIKI / JAPAN)
the right, you press the A button, Jun Fujiki, creator of the PSP
then the S button, then the D and PS3 downloadable title
button. Ono wanted to make an ECHOCHROME, has produced
augmented reality game, but it a number of interesting
was “very troublesome” to use prototypes using similarly
such complex peripherals and Escher-styled concepts, and
instead settled on the keyboard, showcased one in particular—
saying, “It’s not necessary to INCOMPATIBLE BLOCK. In it, the
come up with new devices to user can drag blocs around
create a new experience.” the screen from a certain player goes through emotional outfit Lexaloffle showed SWARM versions of RPG titles and other
perspective and stack them. experiences by going through RACER 3000, his alternative games could be an avenue of
HAZARD: THE JOURNEY these multiple stories at one top down racing game. In it, exploration and that multiple
OF LIFE YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE time.” In addition, you can edit you control an entire swarm of players could cooperate across
(ALEXANDER BRUCE / (MARCUS RICHERT / SWEDEN) the conversations in the game via characters, and you can control the network to collectively
AUSTRALIA) Marcus Richert, a Swedish a webpage—a unique version of the size of the swarm while create optimum "replays."
Alex Bruce presented HAZARD: journalism student showed user-generated content. you try to pick up gems. He
THE JOURNEY OF LIFE, an abstract YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE, a cheeky noted: “The entire game is about TRANSCEND
UNREAL TOURNAMENT 3 mod conceptual title that is available ECOLPIT learning to control the size and (FISHBEAT / UNITED STATES)
about “philosophy, player in 25 languages. It features a (MISI / JAPAN) movement of your swarm.” Fishbeat’s Zach Aikman showed
expectations" ... and learning single level, certain failure, but Misi showed ECOLPIT, a top- off TRANSCEND, an evolution of
through experiences in which a massive amount of game down 2D title with bug-like PARA RAIL the IGF Student game-winning
the player makes choices that over screens that tell a story characters eating food and (KUNIAKI WATANABE AND SYNAESTHETE, which is currently
result in a moral or life lesson. of the player after death. Keita fighting with each other. You can ONITAMA - ZENER WORKS INC. in development for Xbox Live
For example, the player can try Takahashi said that he liked the either defeat or outgrow all the AND TEAM ONIKU / JAPAN) Arcade. In the title, you have to
to jump over a pit that is not “corniness” of the game. other characters to complete The creators at Zener Works avoid enemies and attack them
initially make-able, despite an each level. His “truly foolish” and Team OniKu presented PARA by tapping in time to the beat,
exhortation to "jump." The player HIS AND HER AI nonetheless has a massive RAIL, a vector-style ASTEROIDS- creating a music action game. The
must fall down to learn how to DISCONNECTED memory, recalling when other looking spacecraft that is not abstract title included circles of
get up and keep playing. CONVERSATIONS bugs shot at them, and retaining directly controlled. In fact, trees attacking and giant dancing
(HIMO / JAPAN) that hostility for a long period all you can do is increase or mushroom bosses in a lush visual
SHADOW PHYSICS The Kyoto-based developer of time. They will also develop decrease the amount of games atmosphere, with a bright trance-
(ENEMY AIRSHIP / UNITED behind HIS AND HER DISCONNECTED hostility toward characters being played simultaneously like electronica soundtrack.
STATES) CONVERSATIONS, Himo, showed an that attack their friends, and by deleting any game that is
Steve Swink and Scott Anderson interesting Japanese-language camaraderie is also built up about to end in Game Over. KATAMARI creator Keita Takahashi
of Enemy Airship then presented title in which couples are over time by each of these odd- The makers explained: “You said pointedly that the titles on
SHADOW PHYSICS, which stars a discussing things with each other looking bugs. don’t actually manipulate show at the second Sense Of
character that only exists in a in text boxes, and you have one and play the game, yet still Wonder Night were “games that
shadow world, and must clamber minute to decide which couple SWARM RACER 3000 get the feeling of enjoyment.” the people here were not forced
over shadows of real objects to matches another by reading (JOSEPH WHITE AND LEXALOFFLE They suggested some future to create, but games that they
reach level completion. The duo what they are saying to each GAMES / JAPAN) applications to this experiment, really wanted to create.”
showed that when you push other. The creator noted: “The Joseph White of veteran indie arguing that parallel universe —Simon Carless
4 GAME DEVELOPER | NOVEMBER 2009
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Good Old Designs Spotlight on David Siller
DAVID SILLER IS THE CREATOR OF AERO THE ACROBAT, AND WORKED WITH SUNSOFT’S U.S. OFFICE FOR MANY YEARS BEFORE CONTRIBUTING DESIGN
to CRASH BANDICOOT (through publisher Universal), and then MAXIMO and other titles with Capcom. In those days, he was part of the Japanese/Western
collaboration experiments, analogous to STI and Sonic Team’s work on SONIC 2. Recently, he’s been showing some of his old designs via his Facebook
page—we’ve been trying to convince him to keep a repository of this stuff, but for now, we’ll highlight a few pieces of his work on MAXIMO, still done
the old fashioned way, with pen and paper. —Brandon Sheffield
november calendar
INDEPENDENT GAME CONFERENCE WEST 09 IGDA LEADERSHIP FORUM
Marriott Marina Del Rey, Marina Del Rey, CA San Francisco Airport Marriott, Burlingame, CA
November 5–6 November 12–13
Price: $119–$325 www.igcwest.com Price: $400–$1,750 www.igda.org/leadership
PROJECT HORSESHOE NETGAMES 2009
Canyon of the Eagles, Lake Buchanan, TX University of Paris, Paris, France
November 5–8 November 23–25
IGDA Leadership Forum Price: $1,995–$2,195 www.projecthorseshoe.com Price: EUR175–EUR375 http://netgames2009.lip6.fr
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J A K E C A N N E L L
CLOUD COMPUTING HAS COME INTO ITS OWN IN RECENT YEARS. UNLIKE MOST BUZZWORD CONCEPTS, IT REALLY
does represent a true shift in the computer industry, from the devices and services users purchase to how they
are designed and operated. With the rise in sales dominance of cheap laptops, the announcement of Google’s
plans to turn Chrome into a web operating system, and the general shift to software as a service, it should come
as no surprise that some see the game industry heading in the same direction.
But streaming a fully interactive video game in real time is a very complex problem, far more so than typical
web-based applications, and surely still far off into a future world featuring a faster, more reliable internet. Or is
it? Just this year at GDC, newly-unveiled startup OnLive announced that it will be bringing that future into the
present this year, with its fully cloud-based microconsole system, which immediately brought a competitor out
of hiding in the form of David Perry’s new venture, Gaikai. These two aren’t alone: start-up Otoy is partnering
with AMD to create large render farms that can be used for gaming, and several other start-ups are working on
streaming games over existing cable set top boxes.
IMAGE FROM THE GAME POLYNOMIAL BY DMYTRY LAVROV
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If OnLive or one of its competitors overcomes the determined that the measurable delay threshold is around 100–150ms. It’s obviously a fuzzy
myriad technical and economic hurdles to launch a viable number, but as a rule of thumb, a delay of under 120ms is typically unnoticeable to humans. The
cloud gaming system, the impact on the industry over brain has a massive number of neurons and connections (billions and trillions respectively),
the years ahead could be transformative. It could be the but signals propagate across the brain very slowly compared to the speed of light. For reference
end of the console cycle. Almost everyone has something I highly recommend Consciousness Explained by Daniel C Dennet. Here are some interesting
to gain out of this change. Consumers gain the freedom timescale factoids from that book:
and luxury of instant, on-demand access to ultimately
all of the world’s games, and the ability to try before
» saying, “one, Mississippi” 1000msec
they buy or rent. Publishers get to cut out the retailer
middle-man, and avoid the banes of piracy and used » umyelinated nerve fiber, fingertip to brain 500msec
game resales. » speaking a syllable 200msec
But the biggest benefit ultimately will be for
» starting and stopping a stopwatch 175msec
developers and consumers, in terms of the eventual
game development cost reduction and quality » a frame of television (30fps) 33msec
increase enabled by the technological leap inherent
» fast (myelinated) nerve fiber, fingertip to brain 20msec
to cloud computing. Finally developing for one
common, relatively open platform (server-side PC) » basic cycle time of a neuron 10msec
will significantly reduce the complexity in developing » basic cycle time of a CPU(2009) .000001msec
a AAA title. But going further into the future, once we
actually start developing game engines specifically
for the cloud, we enter a whole new technological era. In the time it takes the "press fire" signal to travel from the brain down to the finger muscle,
Its mind-boggling for me to think of what can Internet packets can travel roughly 4,000 km through fiber (light moves about 200,000 km/s
be done with a massive server farm consisting of through fiber). This is about the distance from Los Angeles to New York.
thousands or even tens of thousands of densely- Each component of a game system (input connection, processing, output display
networked GPUs with shared massive RAID storage. connection) adds a certain amount of delay, and the total delay must add up to around 120ms
Engines developed for this system will look far beyond or less for good gameplay. Up to 150ms is sometimes acceptable, and beyond 200ms the user
anything on the market today and will easily support experience rapidly breaks down as every action has noticeable delay.
massively multiplayer networking, without any of the But how much delay do current games have? Gamasutra has a interesting article about this
usual constraints in physics or simulation complexity. (see Resources). There, Mick West measures the actual delay of real world games using a high
Game development costs could be cut in half, and the speed digital camera. He finds a “raw response time for GTA IV of 166 ms (200 ms on flat panel
quality bar for the big budget AAA titles could close the TVs).” This is relatively high, beyond the acceptable range, and GTA has received some criticism
gap with feature films. for sluggish response. And yet this is the grand blockbuster of video games, so it certainly shows
But can it work? And if so, how well and when? that some games can get away with 150–200ms responses and the users simply won’t notice
Skeptics such as Richard Leadbetter (see resources) or care. Keep in mind this delay time isn’t when playing the game over OnLive or anything of that
doubt that the fundamental obstacles of Internet sort: this is just the natural delay for that game with a typical home setup.
latency, limited bandwidth, and real-time video In the modern era, a typical network ping to a server is in the range of 30 to 60 ms. So now
compression are close to solvable. And even if they are, you can imagine that lengthening the input and video connections out across the Internet is not
the cost of all the server hardware and bandwidth could as ridiculous as it first appears. It adds additional delay, which you simply need to compensate for
be astronomical. Some have also doubted the true value somewhere else.
added for the end user: even if it can work technically How would a server-based rendering system compensate for this delay? The idea for existing
and economically, how many gamers really want this? games is simple: You can just run the game at a much higher FPS. Controllers and displays
add some latency, but the bulk of the delay comes from the game engines themselves, which
LATENCY typically internally buffer 3–4 frames of data for pipelining between the numerous processors of
» The Internet is far from a guaranteed delivery modern systems. Running at 30fps, every full frame buffered costs a whopping 30ms of delay.
system, and at first the idea of sending players’ inputs If the PC version of a console game runs at 60 FPS, and it still keeps 4 frames of buffering, the
across the Internet, computing a frame on a server, internal delay is reduced from 120ms to 60ms. If you combine that with a low-latency controller
and sending it back across the Internet to the user and TV, suddenly it becomes realistic to play a game in Los Angeles from a server residing in
sounds fantastical. But to assess how feasible this San Jose. In fact, with a fiber connection such as FIOS and good home equipment, you could
is, we first have to look at the concept of delay from conceivably play from almost anywhere in the U.S., in theory. The key is that many console
a neurological perspective. A user presses the fire games have already maxed out the maximum delay (when running on the console), and modern
button on a controller, and some amount of time later, GPUs are many times faster. In the future, engines designed to support server side rendering can
the proper audio-visual response is presented in the further reduce the delay by reducing or eliminating internal buffering.
form of a gunshot. If the firing event and the response
event occur close enough in time, the brain processes VIDEO COMPRESSION AND BANDWIDTH
them as a simultaneous event, like two expanding and » Clearly latency alone is not a final obstacle to cloud gaming. A server can not send a raw,
reverberating ripples of thought that merge together. uncompressed frame buffer directly to the user (at least, not at any acceptable resolution on today’s
Beyond some threshold, the two events desynchronize broadband). For practical streaming video, compressors need to squeeze those frame buffers down
and are processed distinctly: the user notices the to acceptably tiny sizes, and more importantly, they need to do this rapidly or near instantly so as not
delay. A large amount of research on this subject has to introduce additional delay. Is this possible? What is the state of the art in video compression?
8 GAME DEVELOPER | NOVEMBER 2009
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