Game Dev in Motion #4: Engaging Players Beyond the Medium

This was captured mid-way into a coversation (thanks Audacity) about engagement beyond the medium in relation to games (video and otherwise). The gaming session we're talking about at the start was a then-upcoming Warhammer Fantasy Battle match we played that evening.

We went on to talk about a number of related areas -- primarily we were trying to pin down specifics around what engages players beyond the ostensible gaming session.

Here's the link -- Game Dev in Motion #4: Engaging Players Beyond the Medium.

For those who didn't catch the video last time, here's the audio for -- Game Dev in Motion #3: Theme, Context and Player Engagement.

Game Dev in Motion #3: Theme, Context and Player Engagement

A pretty general discussion in which we discuss some recent examples in providing theme and context, how the platform (particularly iOS) affects context delivery, and specifically some of the feel and engagement aspects to:

• Left 4 Dead (1 & 2)
• Mass Effect 2
• Dragon Age
• Dawn of War II
• Metal Gear Solid
• Dungeon Hunter 2
• Medal of Honour (specifically multiplayer)
• Assassin's Creed (largely as a counter example)

The links we referenced:

• Procedural zombie generation with Left 4 Dead's AI Direction on AIGameDev
• Art stills from Dead West
• Goose's Flickr account -- specifically this set
• My festive musings on Dungeon Hunter 2 << yea, it turns out I never wrote this post, although I did mention it in passing in our "Level up" post
• It was MAG that we were thinking of (256 multi player)

We didn't actually get to talking too much about how we are looking to provide context and feel in Dead West -although we did end up talking about player engagement a whole lot more than I thought we would.

For those of you who stuck around to the end and are curious -- we we're playing Last Night on Earth.

Feedback and general thoughts encouraged, let us know what you think of the general discussion style -- we've a bunch of technical stuff to sort out (external mics, appropriate encoding, publishing in iTunes etc) but we're just going to let the content take its own course and see what happens.

Game Dev in Motion #2: Designing and animating top-down 2d sprites

Game Dev in Motion #2! ...in which we talk about designing top-down animations and give you a simple method for testing simple frame-by-frame animations direct from Photoshop to Flash in a couple of easy steps. Some what a direct follow-up to GDIM #1 - thanks for all the super feedback.

We cover:

• Deciding what to animate
• How to animate _and_ rotate a top-down sprite
• Drawing large and rendering small
  • the complexities of scaling sprites down -- or more specifically designging sprites such that they can be scaled down and why they look, well, silly at their original scale
  • ...and the suggestion of what the player sees and how that's perceived
• Testing animations
  • in code
  • with tools - specifically flash, by:
    • getting your layers (frames) in order in PhotoShop
    • scaling to size
    • importing into Flash
    • organising an animation around keyframes
    • manipulating frame rate in flash
    • adding a background layer to the animation (see GDIM #1 for more on the backgrounds)
  • we also point out some of problems -- specifically the artifacting issue we were seeing on the first imported frame
• We also explore using Flash to test movement along with aniamtion - and, well, we prove that it can be done.
• A little about animation and sprite sheet workflow - using Zwoptex for our spritesheets (which are being managed by Cocos2d in our game code).
• Working out framerates -- or, well, iterating the framerates through testing (why to test the things in the first place)

We also give away some information about the item unlocks and other game design bits in Dead West. Enjoy ;)

Game Dev in Motion #1: Creating a 3D world with 2D art

Game Dev in Motion? Dead West developer diary? Whatever... this week, we've done something a little different for #idevblogaday -- we made a video blog in answer to a question Markus Nigrin asked on twitter: "Anybody know a 2D game where you move in a pseudo 3D screen?" We do, as it turns out: Dead West, the title we're actively working on.

In it we cover wrangling perspective and the use of 3D-like environments for our upcoming 2d, action-strategy iPad game, Dead West. See below for a further breakdown of contents.

We demonstrate most of what we're talking about with work-in-progress level backgrounds from various stages of development. It features some of the current versions of actual in-game levels -- not 100% polished, but certainly 90% of the way there.

Amongst other topics, we cover:

• Hinting and suggestion issues in design -- if you know what the thing is supposed to be, it's difficult to objectively assess it
• Use of palette
• The history of artwork development as it spans from pre-Retina display single screen art at 320x480 to multiple iPad screens spanning 7680x1024
• Our experience of trying to build an asset library -- and deciding not to in the end
• Explanation of the liberties we were able to take when twisting and manipulating perspective -- and the problems that caused between levels and settings
• Problems and tips for representing specific things, including:
  • water
  • trees
  • hard edges
  • depth
  • candy floss
  • elevation and slopes
• Iteraton between design & art -- how forcing a fixed perspective became reliant on the inter-dependencies between content design and art design
• Repeating artwork elements and brushesT
• Textures to show ground -- and not having holes in the earth
• Development layers in the art itself

We also start to talk about some of the level design itself -- and how that impacts on the art and art design.

All the artwork featured was produced in PhotoShop, and the video's full of hint-shaped nuggets for producing exactly this kind of art in PhotoShop.

The video also features early previews of some of the original score from Dead West.

Game Dev in Motion?

What do you think of the format? Let us know in the comments -- we're thinking about doing more.