>> POSTMORTEM TWISTED PIXEL'S THE MAW

DECEMBER 2008

THE LEADING GAME INDUSTRY MAGAZINE

>> INTERVIEW >> AURAL FIXATION >> GAMESCAPE TAPS COMPRESSING SOUND A HISTORY OF BOSTON HIS CREATIVITY FOR THE IPHONE GAME DEVELOPMENT

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©Replay Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. Product features, specifications, system requirements and availability are subject to change without notice. ReplayDIRECTOR and the Replay Solutions logo are registered trademarks of Replay Solutions, LLC in the and/or other countries. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners. []CONTENTS DECEMBER 2008 VOLUME 15, NUMBER 11

FEATURES

7 WHAT WENT WRONG? Over the years, postmortems start to echo each other. The same problems are encountered, and fixed, or dealt with. Here, we've compiled the 10 most common difficulties of the last three years for your reading (and cringing) pleasure. Just as the Salary Survey is intended to be waved in the face of your boss come raise time (or to hide if you're paid more than the average), this feature should hopefully go part of the way toward fixing some common development mis-steps. 7 By Brandon Sheffield

14 INTERVIEW: YUJI NAKA Yuji Naka was once one of the biggest names in Japanese game creators, as the man 16 behind . Since his era of 14 prominence, Naka has made a purposeful shift from manager back to creator, and is now launching a series of simple, easy-to-play games for the . In this interview, conducted POSTMORTEM at the recent , we discussed his new company , as well as his latest 16 TWISTED PIXEL'S THE MAW work, LET'S TAP, which doesn't even require the players to touch the controller. Twisted Pixel went from an under-construction warehouse to a urologist's office during the development of THE MAW, and lived to tell By Brandon Sheffield the tale. Here, the author discusses the difficulty of Lua and Luabind memory allocations and XML load times, not to mention the difficulty of greenlighting a new project to begin with. By Frank Wilson

DEPARTMENTS COLUMNS

2 GAME PLAN By Brandon Sheffield 36 THE INNER PRODUCT By Noel Llopis [PROGRAMMING] A Christmas Story Data Alignment Part 1

4 HEADS UP DISPLAY 38 PIXEL PUSHER By Steve Theodore [ART] Front Line Award Finalists, Tec-Toy's new console, the Uzebox The M-Word homebrew system, and more. 41 DESIGN OF THE TIMES By Damion Schubert [DESIGN] 30 GAMESCAPE By Jeffrey Fleming Writing Better, Shorter System Docs Boston, 43 AURAL FIXATION By Jesse Harlin [SOUND] 33 TOOL BOX By Noel Llopis and Bijan Forutanpour Squashed Whole Tomato's Visual Assist , and Real Time Rendering, Third Edition, by Tomas Akenine-Moller, Eric Haines, and Naty Hoffman 48 ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT By Matthew [HUMOR] Bug Me Not COVER ART: JOE MITCH

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0812gd_contents_vIjf.indd 1 11/20/08 10:46:04 AM []GAME PLAN www.gdmag.com CMP Media, 600 Harrison St., 6th Fl., San Francisco, CA 94107 t: 415.947.6000 f: 415.947.6090 CMPThink Media, Services, 600 600 Harrison Harrison St., St.,6th 6thFl., Fl., SanSUBSCRIPTION Francisco, SERVICES CA 94107 t: 415.947.6000 f: 415.947.6090 t:FOR 415.947.6000 INFORMATION, f: ORDER415.947.6090 QUESTIONS, AND ADDRESS CHANGES t: 800.250.2429 f: 847.763.9606 e: [email protected] SUBSCRIPTION SERVICESSERVICES EDITORIAL FOR INFORMATION, ORDERORDER QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS, AND AND ADDRESS ADDRESS CHANGES CHANGES EDITOR-IN-CHIEF t: 800.250.2429 f:f: 847.763.9606847.763.9606 e: e: [email protected] [email protected] Simot: 800.250.2429n Carless [email protected] f: 847.763.9606 e: [email protected] MANAGINGEDITITORIAL EDITOR A CHRISTMAS PUBLISHERJill Duffy [email protected] Simon Carless [email protected]@gdmag.com FEATURESSimon Carless EDITOR [email protected]@gdmag.com MANAGINGEDITOR-IN-CHIEFBrandon Sheffield EDITOR [email protected] Jill Duffy [email protected]@gdmag.com ARTJillBrandon DIRECTOR Duffy Sheffield [email protected] [email protected] STORY SENIORPRODUCTIONCliff Scorso EDITOR [email protected] EDITOR Brandon Sheffield [email protected]@gdmag.com CONTRIBUTINGJeffrey Fleming EDITORS [email protected] ARTJesse DIRECTOR Harlin [email protected] Cliff Scorso [email protected] NoahCliffJoseph Scorso Falstein Mitch [email protected] [email protected]@gdmag.com CONTRIBUTINGSteve Theodore EDITORSEDITORS [email protected] SENIORJesse Harlin CONTRIBUTING [email protected] EDITOR MickJesseJill Duffy West Harlin [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] BY NOW, YOU WILL LIKELY HAVE EITHER FINISHED YOU’LL PUT YOUR EYE OUT Noah Falstein [email protected]@gdmag.com ADVISORYCONTRIBUTINGNoah Falstein BOARD EDITORS [email protected] or just be finishing your holiday crunch. If you’re Meeting a holiday schedule has its obvious Steve Theodore [email protected]@gdmag.com MickHalJesse Barwood West Harlin [email protected] [email protected] not finished, well, I’m sorry for you. And if you problems. Unless a game is very specifically EllenMickSteve GuonWest Theodore Beeman [email protected] [email protected] ADVISORY BOARD haven’t had to crunch at all, maybe you should planned out to release at that time, there’s a ADVISORYBradNoel BulkleyLlopis BOARD [email protected] HalClinton Barwood Keith High Designer-at-LargeDesigner-at-Large Moon Studios EllenSoren Guon Johnson Beeman [email protected] Microsoft write us an article. strong chance you’re going to be crunching, RyanEllenDamion LesserGuon Schubert Beeman [email protected] Microsoft BradMark BulkleyDeLoura NeversoftNeversoftUbisoft Our main feature this month is about common rushing, or otherwise cutting corners to get it ADVISORYClintonMark DeLoura Keith BOARD HighUbisoft Moon Studios ClintonHal Barwood Keith Designer-at-LargeHigh Moon Studios things that have gone wrong with game out the door. Granted this can happen in projects Ryan Lesser HarmonixHarmonix ADVERMarkEllenTISI DeLouraGuonNG BeemanSALES Microsoft development, and most of them tie in to some regardless, but rushing a product with the DIRECTORMarkBrad BulkleyDeLoura OF SALES Neversoft Ubisoft Steve McGill e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6217 degree with crunch and schedule problems. One specific intent to compete in the most difficult, ADVERTISINClinton KeithG SALES GLOADVERTISIRyanBAL Lesser SALESNG SALESMANAGER, Harmonix RECRUITMENT & EDUCATION of these is often the cause or the effect of the most cut-throat period of the year is not very DIRECTORAaronMark DeLouraMurawski OF SALESSALES GreenScreen e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6227 DIRECTORSteve McGill OF SALESe: [email protected] t: 415.947.6217 rest. It’s easy to see how this ties in to the holiday healthy for you or for the game. SR.St eEVENTSve McGill ACCOUNT e: [email protected] MANAGER, SOUTHWEST t: 415.947.6217 GLOADVERTISIJasminBAL SALESDavéNG SALESe: MANAGER, [email protected] RECRUITMENT t: 415.947.6226 & EDUCATION retail meat market. There are only so many dollars consumers have GLOAaronBAL Murawski SALES MANAGER, e: [email protected] RECRUITMENT & t:EDUCATION 415.947.6227 SR.MEDIAAaron ACCOUNT ACCOUNT Murawski MANAG MANAGER e:ER, [email protected] EAST COAST, EUROPE & t: EASTERN 415.947.6227 CANADA to spend, and the problem doesn’t just come up SR.CecilyJo EVENTShn M Herbstalik ACCOUNT Watson e: [email protected] e: MANAG [email protected], SOUTHWEST t: 415.947.6215 t: SR.Jasmin EVENTS Davé ACCOUNT e: [email protected] MANAGER, SOUTHWEST t: 415.947.6226 'TIS THE SEASON TO during the holidays. released against MEDIAJasmin415.9 ACCOUNT47.6224 Davé e: MANAG [email protected] t: 415.947.6226 SR. ACCOUNT MANAGER, EAST COAST, EUROPE & EASTERN CANADA SR.GLOBALJohn ACCOUNT Watson SALES MANAG e: MANAGER, [email protected], E RECRUITMENTAST COAST, t: EUROPE 415.947.224 & EDUCATION & EASTERN CANADA MAKE MONEY 2, and FAR CRY 2 released against CecilyAaron MurawskiHerbst e: [email protected] e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6215 ADVERTISINGCecily Herbst PRODUCTION e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6215 Certainly the holidays are a big spending period, 3—but DARK SECTOR also released against ACCOUNT t: 415.947.6227 MANAGER, WESTERN CANADA, INDIA, AUSTRALIA, & ASIA ADVERTISINGMEDIAAmanda ACCOUNT Mae PRODUCTION Miller MANAG e: [email protected] MANAGER Kevin Chanel t: 785.838.7523 so it’s no wonder that publishers, and even GTA IV, and that’s got nothing to do with holidays. ACCOUNTJohn Watson MANAG e:ER, [email protected] EDUCATION AND RECRUITMENT t: 415.947.224 SALESREPRINTSGina GrossREPRE e:SENTATIVE, [email protected] EDUCATION & RECRUITMENT t: 415.947.6241 developers, want to get their big titles out and in Naturally it’s hard to predict a release window, but ADVERTISINGGina Gross e: PRODUCTION [email protected] t: 415.947.6241 REPRINTSADVERTISINGSR. EVENTS ACCOUNT ACCOUNT PRODUCTION MANAGER MANAG ER, SOUTHWEST the minds of consumers round about that time. the holiday season is a known quantity. You know MEDIAADVERTISINGCindJasminy ACCOUNTZauss Davé t:PRODUCTION 951.698.1780 MANAGER MANAGER e: [email protected] Kevin Chanel John Watson e: [email protected] t: 415.947.224 ACCOUNT MANAGER, WESTERN CANADA, INDIA, AUSTRALIA, & ASIA Shareholders, too, want to see or hear things everyone will be bringing their best and brightest. MARKEREPRINTSTING ADVERTISINGAmanda Mae PRODUCTION Miller like “holiday blockbuster” in order to keep their MARKETINGPARS INTERNATIONAL MANAGER ADVERTISINGHiJoelary N unMcVickerziata PRODUCTION t: e: 212.221.9595 [email protected] MANAGER e: [email protected] Ke t:vin 41 5.947.6207Chanel investor confidence, and I do think this is a very THE NEW KIDS ADVERTISING PRODUCTION REPRINTSMARKETING large part of why we have a holiday glut. I don’t want to sound like I’m arguing against CMPMARKETIPRODUCTION GAMENG GROUP MANAGER Pete C. Scibilia e: [email protected] PARSVP,MARKETING GROUP INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHER MANAGER APPLIED TECHNOLOGIES Philip Chapnick But ultimately, is this really helpful? Consider original IP. I could see reading this editorial in that REPRINTSJoeHila rNyun McVickerziata t: 212.221.9595 e: [email protected] e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6207 VP,Hila STRATEGICry McVicker MARKETING e: [email protected] Michele Maguire t: 415.947.6207 a game like DEAD SPACE. It’s a good one, certainly, light, and it’s quite far from what I mean, given MARKETIPARS INTERNATIONALNG GROUPCMPJoe GAME Nu DIRECTORnziata GROUP t: 212.221.9595Kathy Schoback e: [email protected] and its -related pedigree gives my love for gameplay experimentation. Original MARKETINGVP, GROUP PUBLISHER MANAGER APPLIED TECHNOLOGIES Philip Chapnick AUDIENCEHilary McVicker DEVELOPMENT e: [email protected] t: 415.947.6207 it even more street cred. But what it isn’t is a IP is obviously risky though, there’s no denying it. VP,THI NKSTRATEGIC SERVICES MARKETING Michele Maguire GROUP DIRECTOR Carolyn Giroux e: [email protected] CMPGROUPCEO THINKGAME DIRECTOR GROUPSERVICES Kathy Philip Schoback Chapnick holiday blockbuster. I want to be very careful And returning to the DEAD SPACE example, or even DIRECTOR Mary Griffin e: [email protected] DIRECTSENIORGROUPOR DIRECTORVP, Mary TECHNOLOGY Griffin Kathy e: [email protected] SchobackINNOVATORS GROUP Philip Chapnick with my phrasing here, because I am absolutely to MIRROR’S EDGE, it does speak well of EA’s new AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT VP,ACREATIVESSISTANT STRATEGIC DIRECTORMANAGER MARKETING JohnCliff Scorso Slesinski Michele e:Maguire [email protected] not saying it can’t stand toe to toe with the other direction that the company deemed its original GROUP DIRECTOR Carolyn Giroux e: [email protected] GROUPLAUDIENCEIST RENT DIRECTORAL DEVELOPMENT Merit Direct Kathy LLC Schoback t: 914.368.1000 DIRECTOR Mary Griffin e: [email protected] releases. But when you have a third person game IPs important enough to launch them against INTERNATIONALGROUP DIRECTOR LICENSING Kathy Henry INFORMATION e: [email protected] AUDIENCEINTERNATIONALASSISTANT DEVELOPMENT MANAGER LICENSING John INFORMATION Slesinski e: [email protected] in which the primary action is shooting, it would better-understood market movers. ADIRECTSMarioSISTANT SalinasOR KristiMANAGER t: 650.513.4234Cunningham John Slesinski f: 650.513.4482 e: [email protected] e: [email protected] GROUPLIST RENT DIRECTORAL Merit C aDirectrolyn Giroux LLC t: e:914.368.1000 [email protected] behoove you not to release it against GEARS OF But I do wonder if it was worth pushing them DIRECTCMP e: [email protected] TECHNOR MaryOLOGY Griffin MANAGEMENT e: [email protected] AR EARS OF AR PRESIDENTAINTERNATIONALLSISTSISTANT RENTAL MANAGERAND Merit CEO LICENSING Direct St eJohnve LLCWeitzner Slesinski INFORMATION t: 914.368.1000 e: [email protected] W 2. People are waiting for G W 2, and to meet this three-month holiday window. Even Mario Salinas t: 650.513.4234 f: 650.513.4482 e: msalinas@ EXECUTIVELISTMario RENT SalinasAL VP Merit AND t: 650.513.4234CFO Direct Adam LLC Marder t: 914.368.1000 f: 650.513.4482 e: msalinas@ you know that they are. They are not necessarily FAR CRY 2, which was a sequel, didn’t really have EXECUTIVEMARKETINGcmp.com VP AND CFO Adam Marder SENIOR VP, AUDIENCE MARKETING & DEVELOPMENT Bill Amstutz waiting for DEAD SPACE. the mindshare required to survive in this holiday SENIORINTERNATIONALSERVICES VP, MARKETINGAUDIENCE LICENSING MARKETING DIRECTOR INFORMATION & K DEVELOPMENTaren Tom e: ktom@think- SENIORCMPMarioser vices.comTECHNOLOGY SalinasVP, CMP INTEGRATEDt: 650.513.4234 MANAGEMENT MARKETING f: 650.513.4482 SOLUTIONS Joseph Braue Had DEAD SPACE come out during a softer period, climate. You shouldn’t have to “survive,” but SENIORPRESIDENTSERVICESe: [email protected] VP MARKETINGAND AND GENERAL CEO St COORDINATOReve COUNSEL Weitzner Sandra Laura Grayson Robison e: lrobison@ EXECUTIVE VP AND CFO Adam Marder it might have had a chance to be as much of a that’s often what it amounts to when everyone is SENIORCMPthink-services.com TECHN VP, CORPORATEOLOGY MANAGEMENT MARKETING Lisa Johnson PRESIDENT, CHANNEL GROUP Robert Faletra financial success as it was a critical success. I scrambling for the same dollars at the same time. PRESIDENTSENIOR VP, CORPORATE AND CEO St SALESeve Weitzner Anne Marie Miller PRESIDENT, CMP TECHNOLOGY INNOVATORS GROUP SENIORPRESIDENT,UBM TECHNOLOGY VP, MANUFACTURING CMP TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT Marie INNOVATORS Myers GROUP don’t know the final numbers on it, but I know Couldn’t the company actually make more EXECUTIVEPaul Miller VP AND CFO Adam Marder SENIORCHIEF EXECUTIVE VP, COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER Da AlexandraviRobertd Levin Faletra Raine it wasn’t on the charts long, which is related to money by releasing these games at a different PRESIDENT, CHANNELCMP BUSINESS GROUP TECHNOLOGY GROUP Tony Uphoff VP,CHIEF AUDIENCE OPERATING DEVELOPMENT OFFICER ScottMichael Mozarsky Zane VP,PRESIDENT,CORPORATE AUDIENCE CMPSENIOR DEVELOPMENT TECHNOLOGY VP SALES Michael AnneINNOVATORS Zane Marie Miller GROUP another major problem. One reason that so many time, all the while increasing quality? I’m far CORPORATECHIEFPaul Miller FINANCIAL SENIOR OFFICER VP SALES David Anne Wein Marie Miller PRESIDENT,SENIOR VP, CMPCHANNEL INTEGRATED GROUP Robert MARKETING Faletra SOLUTIONS Joseph companies feel they have to release during the from a financial genius, so it’s possible I’m totally PRESIDENT,SENIORCHIEF INFORMATION VP, CMP CMP INTEGRATED BUSINESS OFFICER TECHNOLOGY MARKETINGKevin Prinz GROUP SOLUTIONS Tony JosephUphoff PRESIDENT,Braue CMP ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA Tony Keefe CORPORATE SENIOR VP SALES Anne Marie Miller holiday period is because if they don’t, it’s felt off-base here, but it seems like a less ambitious PRESIDENT,SENIOR VP, HUMANBUSINESS RESOURCES TECHNOLOGY Marvlieu GROUP JollaJeff Patterson Hall SENIOR VP, CMPSTRATEGIC INTEGRATED DEV. AND MARKETING BUSINESS SOLUTIONS ADMIN. Pat Joseph Nohilly Braue that consumers won’t remember the game when release window for original or lesser known IP SENIOR VP, VP, GROUP MANUFACTURING DIRECTOR, ELECTRONICS Marie Myers & SOFTWARE GROUPS SENIOR VP, HUMANMANUFACTURING RESOURCES Marie Marvlieu Myers Jolla Hall SENIORPaul Miller VP, COMMUNICATIONS Alexandra Raine that holiday rolls around. And they’re kind of right, would yield better results, so long as doing that SENIOR VP, MANUFACTURINGCOMMUNICATIONS Marie NORTH Myers AMERICA Alexandra Raine SENIORVP, INTERNATIONAL VP, GROUP DIRECTOR, BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS DEVELOPMENT GROUP, Patrick Brennan because games don’t stay in the primary shelves doesn’t relegate it to lower status within the SENIORStephen VP, Saunders COMMUNICATIONS Alexandra Raine for that long, partially because so many games company. In fact, it seems to me it could even VP, INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Patrick Brennan are released during the holiday rush. It seems raise its profile and importance. As per usual, I to me that if major releases were more evenly welcome your thoughts and criticisms. spaced, everyone would benefit. –Brandon Sheffield

Game Developer

2 DECEMBER 2008 | GAME DEVELOPER WWW.CMPGAME.COM

0812gd_gameplan_vIjf.indd 2 11/20/08 10:47:09 AM morpheme-ad.eps 13/12/2007 17:08:48

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GOT NEWS? SEND US THE BIG SCOOP AT [email protected]

ZEEBO THE DOWNLOAD-ONLY CONSOLE

IN MID-NOVEMBER, A NEW CONSOLE network. Apparently, once the drive is isn’t an issue. It’s quite a clever model, soft-launched in Brazil—a joint venture full, users will have to delete games and the cost of the console itself between Tec Toy and Qualcomm, to free up space. It's unclear as of is somewhat reasonable, at $599 through a company called Zeebo press time whether those games Brazilian reais (BRL), with an eventual Inc. (based in San will have to be purchased again. The U.S. cost of $250. The wireless network Diego, Calif.). console does support an SD slot, but is free as of press time, airtime The console, also this is used for pictures and music, fees and other costs are still being called Zeebo, is not for game storage. assessed. Games cost between 7–30 devised specifically In terms of specs, Zeebo sports BRL (U.S. $3–13), but in the U.S. will for developing Qualcomm’s Adreno 130 graphics core, cost between $5 and $15. Payment markets. Tec Toy with a 528MHz ARM 11 processor, and methods include not only traditional has long been the a resolution of 640x480. Early support credit card payments, but also the official distributor for the platform includes publishers cash card model, both using what of games and such as , EA, , Zeebo calls Z-credits. consoles in Brazil, Sega, and Namco. Legacy games like The console will hit the U.S. in due but is also known CARBON and are course, but indeed Brazil and other for manufacturing already announced for the console. developing countries may continue flash RAM-based The interesting thing about Zeebo to be its core market. The distribution Sega Master Systems is that it’s designed to thrive in an model is intriguing though, and it has as recently as this environment that is dominated by the potential to fit its audience. If the year. Qualcomm for piracy. A download-only console software reaches a decent of its part, which owns eliminates the possibility of piracy quality, one wonders if it might not 43 percent of Zeebo without hacking the network itself work in other piracy-prone markets Inc., has wireless networks and mobile (provided hackers don't get too such as South Korea or China, which graphics chipsets as its core business. resourceful with that SD card slot). consoles have had a tough time All Zeebo games are stored on Further, allowing download and UI penetrating. Time, and other regional an internal 1 GB flash drive, and updates via a wireless mobile network launches, will tell. downloaded over a 3G wireless means that broadband penetration —Brandon Sheffield

UZEBOX'S

CALENDAR DO IT YOURSELF 6th Annual Mobile Games Forum 2009 WHILE SONY, MICROSOFT, AND CONTINUE TO London, UK battle it out in a three-way tie for last, a new piece of January 21–22 hardware called the Uzebox is positioned to rocket its way to Price: $2,870 the top. Now developers with a little soldering gun experience www.mobilegames and a DIY spirit can their own consoles. forum.co.uk/index. Designed by Alec Bourque, the Uzebox is a home-built channel sound and even has the ability to accept MIDI input. asp console that offers generous capabilities with a clean, All of the parts can be gathered at a low cost and its C easy-to-assemble circuit board. The heart of the machine coding tools are free under a GNU General Public License. Game Design is a single 8-bit RISC microcontroller called the ATmega644, Check out http://belogic.com/uzebox/index.htm for tools Expo 2009 which is part of the AVR family of chips manufactured by and schematics, as well as videos of a freeware TETRIS-like Vancouver, Canada Atmel, and is coupled with a D725 RGB-to-NTSC converter chip game called MEGATRIS running on the machine. Also visit February 7–8 manufactured by Analog Devices. It has 4K of RAM and 64K www.atmel.com to download the AVR Studio 4 IDE and www. Price: Can $75 of program memory, runs at 28.61818Mhz (Overclocked), avrfreaks.net to join the AVR programming community. www.gamedesign and can display 256 simultaneous colors. It’s capable of 4- —Jeffrey Fleming expo.com

4 DECEMBER 2008 | GAME DEVELOPER

0812gd_hud_vIjf.indd 4 11/20/08 1:55:14 PM 2008 FRONT LINE AWARDS NOMINEES

OUR ANNUAL GAM… D…V…LOP…R FRONT LINE AWARDS ARE ALMOST UPON US SO HERE IS A QUICK run down of the list of nominees in each category; Art, Audio, Books, Engines, , and Programming/Production. In determining the winners of the 2008 awards we’re doing things a bit different than in years prior. After a period of open nominations in October we collected the results and along side developer suggestions we came up with a list that we narrowed down to five entries in each category. The results were a of focused solutions along with more general applications. We then handed the nominees to over to you, the readers of Game Developer, via an invitational online survey in November, so that you could have a voice in picking the recipients of the Front Line Awards. As this issue goes to press, we’re compiling the results—and in our January 2009 issue we’ll reveal the winners. We’ll also be inducting one special game development tool into the Hall of Fame that has been of enduring importance to the development community. Because the editors of Game Developer decide the Hall of Fame winner, it is not eligible in the regular categories. Stay tuned next month for the results.

ART Miles Sound System 7.2c The Art of Game Design: PathEngine 5.16 Rad Game Tools A Book of Lenses PathEngine Photoshop CS3 by Jesse Schell Adobe Voice-O-Matic 2.6 Morgan Kaufmann Physics Di-O-Matic Havok Softimage XSI 7 ENGINES Softimage BOOKS 2.1 NaturalMotion 2009 Dungeons and Desktops: Unity Technologies Autodesk The History of Computer GameSpy SDK Role-playing Games CryEngine 2 GameSpy Autodesk Maya 2008 by Matt Barton Autodesk AK Peters PROGRAMMING/ Gamebryo 2.5 PRODUCTION Modo 302 Game Production Emergent Game Technologies Luxology Handbook, 2nd …dition TestTrack Pro 2008.2 by Heather Maxwell Chandler 1.5.2 Seapine Software AUDIO Infinity Science Press GarageGames Perforce 2008.1 Precision Studio v. 2 Real-Time Rendering, Source Protocol 14, Build Perforce Software Vivox Third …dition 3531 by Tomas Akenine-Moller, Eric Valve XNA Game Studio 2.0 Wwise 2008.3 Haines, Naty Hoffman Microsoft AK Peters MIDDLEWARE Subversion 1.5 Fmod Designer 4.17 Game Programming Gems 7 Autodesk 5 CollabNet Firelight Technologies Pty, Ltd. by Scott Jacobs Autodesk Charles River Media Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Microsoft

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0812gd_hud_vIjf.indd 5 11/20/08 1:55:17 PM Let us take care of your clothes.

cloth.havok.com >> brandon sheffield WHAT WENT WRONG? LEARNING FROM PAST POSTMORTEMS

>>

POSTMORTEMS HAVE BEEN A STAPLE OF GAME DEVELOPER MAGAZINE FOR WELL OVER A DECADE. With so many authors revealing what went right, and of course the car-wreck style appeal of what went wrong with the development process, patterns start to emerge. It becomes clear that a lot of the same mistakes are being made over and over again, and that some companies are even repeating their own mistakes. With that in mind, we decided to round up every “what went wrong” entry from the last three years, and compiled the most frequently made mistakes (usually over five times each) into this cautionary feature. As the saying goes, those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. So here you have the top 10 “wrongs,” in no particular order, over the lifecycle of the current generation so far. No one is safe!

BRANDON SHEFFIELD is editor-in-chief of game developer magazine, and has worked on a few games himself. He still hopes to strike it rich through writing. What went wrong? …mail him at [email protected]. WWW.GDMAG.COM 7

0812gd_whatwentwrong_vIjf.indd 7 11/19/08 8:03:15 PM WHAT WENT WRONG?

CONTENT ADDED TOO LATE. Getting story and This depressing quote is made moreso by the fact that this was features right is difficult at the best of times, but an Live Arcade title, and thus had a relatively small team. The when that content comes in just under the wire, not company was working on multiple projects at once, which widened only does that content suffer, every element of the the communication gap. But that’s another element we’ll get to in game that relies on that content suffers. due time. QUEST (Iron Lore, Jeff Goodsill) “We struggled FINAL FANTASY XII (Square , Taku Murata) “During the 1 getting 25 detailed design documents to the development of FINAL FANTASY XII, the pressure to succeed was at such technical department on time. We were still working on first cut a high point that we were on the brink of losing control during even the design documentation more than one year after the start of the slightest misunderstanding. What happened was our team was given project, so the technical team had to fly blind in the beginning and the freedom to make changes at various stages of development, but some systems had to be redone. the adverse affect of this freedom was miscommunication, confusion, “There was a fairly constant issue of design documents not being and disorder. How work was to be distributed was also often detailed enough for technical implementation.” ambiguous, which contributed to the problem.” After this trouble, the company devised an approval process, Management overhead is a particularly large problem in Japan, which would have the producer, lead designer, technical director, but that’s not to say it can’t happen at home, too. Often there are and the publisher’s creative manager sign off on each document too many managers, but not enough actual management going on. before finalizing it. While this helped, it did slow down the company’s Sound familiar? process a bit, and it’s worth noting that for all Iron Lore’s good points, the studio is now closed. It stands to reason that a “what SCOPE AND SCALE. Ambition is a double-edged went wrong” from a shuttered studio would warrant extra scrutiny. sword. On the one hand, as necessity’s sister, it is And to quote Riley Cooper, who had a similar problem with TOMB the aunt of invention. On the other, biting off more RAIDER: LEGEND, “This clearly serves to remind us that if you don’t than you can chew means your project will bite back. want any features in your game to under-perform, you need to do Schedules aren’t always determined by developers, them 100 percent or not at all.” but they are agreed upon by them. Keeping the BIOSHOCK ( Boston, Alyssa Finley) “We had many drafts of the 3 schedule and the scope of your game within story over the course of development, but the final draft turned out reasonable limits while still doing the best you can is not easy. But to be an almost complete rewrite. it’s absolutely critical. “Competing demands for time and resources meant that, STRANGLEHOLD (Midway Chicago, Brian Eddy) “Believe it or not, unfortunately, some of the important narrative details of the game STRANGLEHOLD began its life as a free-roaming GTA-style game. But weren’t created until the final rewrite, and therefore required quite a after about six months of development we convinced management bit of work to retrofit into an existing game.” that this would take far too long to develop, and was too risky to In an RPG-like game, story is the guiding star of the project. While be Midway’s first next-gen game on top of everything else we were ideally the systems would be fully integrated into the story to the tackling. We were then allowed to cut the game back to a more degree that each can affect the other, at the very least the scenario linear sandbox experience. But it still had an extensive feature list: needs to be nailed down before full-on production. In a game like the single player game, world interactions, four special moves, BIOSHOCK, which features loads of spoken dialog, implementation massive destruction, drivable vehicles with combat, and extensive and pipeline problems can crop up at the last moment, if you don’t multiplayer. We aggressively cut down the scope of each of these deal with them early on. This is exactly what happened to the 2K features as we progressed, but we kept them all in the game. After Boston team. about a year of development it was clear we could not complete all these features at AAA quality, but we still kept trying. At the two year COMMUNICATION. When deadlines get fierce, and mark management set the hard end date. This let us cut drivable everyone’s chugging away, communication is most vehicles so we could concentrate on getting the rest of the features likely the second thing to go. The first, of course, is done at a high quality level. Ultimately cutting vehicles helped get quality of life, leading to crunch, but you can bet that the game shipped, but if we had made that decision a year earlier we’ll get to that. we could have put more time into mission variety and overall polish.” AGE OF BOOTY: (, Max Hoberman) There’s not much you can do when you’re fighting against a 2 “Over the course of the project there were numerous parent that’s beholden to stockholders. This just goes to show disconnects between the perceived state of the game and the the importance of upper management pushing for realistic goals actual state of the game. and cuts when necessary—or in fact making sure the scope is “The hardest hit were the designers, who continued fine-tuning manageable in the first place. plans for sophisticated features like matchmaking and party (Harmonix, Greg LoPiccolo and Daniel Sussman) “We support long after the programmers had already made huge were really excited about including a freestyle mode so players simplifications (and often cuts) to these systems. A combination could assemble their own crazy solos with divebombs, feedback, of lack of attention to the project, poor communication, and wishful finger-tapping, and all the other adolescent guitar showboating thinking led to the design team believing that several features were moves that we so dearly love. We poured a lot of precious far more advanced than we were actually able to implement, and development time and resources into this feature, and sadly, they did not find out the reality until very late in the project.” had to cut it. It was very ambitious and we simply didn’t have the

8 DECEMBER 2008 | GAME DEVELOPER

0812gd_whatwentwrong_vIjf.indd 8 11/19/08 8:03:32 PM

WHAT WENT WRONG?

time we needed to both make it sound good and integrate it into then increasing the scope kind of defeats the purpose! But as a gameplay. Some of us feel that it was a gamble worth taking. Others counterpoint, LEGEND had the problem of too many aren’t so sure.” cooks initially. With too large of a team in the pre-production phase, Proper managing of time and scale can prevent some, but not all attempting to get 45 people to agree on the direction for the title cases like this. It’s one thing to cut a feature when it’s not working, was a challenge. but another when time is all it will take to improve it. Cutting partially-developed features primarily because of time doesn’t make JUGGLING PROJECTS, LACK OF LEADS. These anyone happy. two problem areas have been lumped together because they yield very similar outcomes—people HIRING. Humans are the most expensive aspect are stretched too thin, and hold too many of game development, and also the most difficult responsibilities. This means people often can’t see to find. It was incredibly common for past past their bottom line to check the larger trajectory postmortems to mention not only the reluctance to 5 of the game’s progress or feel. hire, but also the difficulty of integrating new hires AGE OF BOOTY (Certain Affinity, Max Hoberman) “Despite our strong into the existing culture and methodology. start, we made some serious mistakes. Much of this was due to the 4 (Harmonix, Rob Kay) “The only way to fact that we split our focus across too many projects and shifted complete the title on time was to grow the team. We put most of our staff onto and off of the game on numerous occasions. staff onto the game, and expanded the organization to new levels. “On the programming side, for instance, we pulled the original two Our offices were bursting at the seams. With staff spread across programmers off of the project while we negotiated the deal, which three floors, and no room left for the new hires, we needed took several months to finally get signed. We eventually got to finish the game, we bit the bullet and moved the entire these two back on it by hiring two replacements to handle company to a larger space mid way through Alpha. , our other big project at the time. We hired Despite all of this, we still didn’t hire aggressively a third programmer to assist these two while also enough. Many years making small, tightly focused contracting out some programming work. We then hired games had ingrained an efficiency bias and ‘smaller another full-timer and ended our work with the contract is better’ mentality that was hard to shake. We were programmer. We handed the work the contractor was afraid of the additional management required to doing over to one of our LEFT 4 DEAD programmers, hire more people, and it resulted in a longer harder who volunteered to complete it in his spare time.” crunch for all of us.” And it goes on from there. Certain Affinity then took on a The ROCK BAND team had further trouble later, and third project, pulling the volunteer back off, and eventually “fooled ourselves into thinking it was too late to putting the original two coders back on. This coder integrate any new hires.” But ultimately, they had confusion, even on a smaller project, can make a game’s to do so during Beta—not the easiest time to be development a bit schizophrenic. While Certain training new employees. Affinity felt as a young company it couldn’t say CRACKDOWN (Realtime Worlds, Phil no to projects, AGE OF BOOTY would’ve been Wilson) “Another shocking reality better off without distractions. was that the number of coders yet CATAN (, Brian to be hired was expressed in the Reynolds) “Our biggest mistake ... order of tens. In a pragmatic was failing to assign a full-time development environment lead programmer or lead artist to there would have been the project. three choices: 1) increase “Not having a solid the budget, 2) lower our management structure meant ambitions, or 3) pull the that things tended to fall plug. Unfortunately, the through the cracks. There stakeholders were far was no one to set goals for from pragmatic, and the programming team or rather than moving to art group. There was no one jettison anything that wasn’t to assert what needed to be done in direct support of the clearly day-to-day, or week-to-week, or defined ‘project pillars,’ they month-to-month. The employees used the scope discussions as sometimes drifted, unsure a forum to add yet more ideas.” what they should work on next, Keeping the team to spending too much time on measured goals is difficult assets that were unimportant, when re-evaluating a project. neglecting elements of the game Hiring more people and that were actually critical.”

10 DECEMBER 2008 | GAME DEVELOPER

0812gd_whatwentwrong_vIjf.indd 10 11/19/08 7:59:50 PM As much as developers rail against management on occasion, OUTSOURCING. Outsourcing is becoming increas- leads are important for setting structure and scope. Left ingly common in game development, with art unchecked, an artist (just as an example!) will fiddle with an asset being the most common target. It can save money, until doomsday. but it’s tough to get right, and requires a lot of senior bandwidth. LACK OF TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION. This problem 7 SAM & MAX (Telltale Games, Telltale Team) “Once was more common than I imagined it would be. we settle on which contractors we’re going to use, But it does stand to reason that determining the even more time goes into explaining exactly what we need. Since scale of your tools, with appropriate code review, is the SAM & MAX schedule is very tight, we don’t have a lot of time to incredibly important to building out your game in the account for corrections or mistakes due to inadequate contractor early stages. talent or miscommunication. For example, we felt a lot of pain when 6 ROCK BAND (Harmonix, Rob Kay) “Expanding a contract studio sold us an A-team, then once the contract was our code department for ROCK BAND meant bringing in new signed, gave us a B-team whose work fell short of the standards we programmers who were very talented but weren’t all designer- agreed to. programmer hybrids, or if they were didn’t know they were “Communication became even more difficult when the contractors allowed to be. Too often we jumped headlong into implementation weren’t local (we had some on the other side of the planet). When of a new system without taking the time to properly examine the contractor’s workday takes place during the middle of the night the implications or test the edge cases of the design. This bit for us, what would normally be a 10-minute conversation turns into us in a few areas, notably online matchmaking, which had to be a two-day exchange.” redesigned multiple times. Due diligence is incredibly important in the case of contractors, "No doubt about it, jumping into development of complex but it’s tough to foresee the A/B-team problem, which new systems without a technical plan upfront was a flat- incidentally was also mentioned by the STUBBS THE ZOMBIE out mistake.” team. Speaking of which ... Harmonix’s solution going forward is to include STUBBS THE ZOMBIE (Wideload Games, Alexander code review and a technical design document before Seropian) “We underestimated just how much time implementing new systems. It seems obvious in was required to manage contractor submissions. some ways, but the frequency of this problem in We knew it would be time consuming, but even with postmortems indicates it’s not yet at the top of that expectation, the combination of art directing everyone’s list. and art production was more work than we had INDIGO PROPHECY (Quantic Dream, David Cage) time to do. We were short on producers and our “Another classic error we committed was trying to artists were scheduled to produce content on their develop generic tools with a view to possible future own. We didn’t have enough bandwidth available for productions, rather than tools dedicated reviewing submissions in a timely manner. We to the experience of the game we realized too late that our production wanted to create. The initial scripting phase requires an intense focus tool was supposed to enable us to on the work coming in from script both an FPS and a tennis the contractors. Focusing game. The reality quickly proved to our internal efforts on be different from the theory. the contractor feedback “A generic tool enables loop should have been a management of a great variety higher priority for our art of cases, but none of them very direction team.” effectively. The prospect of Now we get to the senior reusing a tool as-is for future management overhead. productions is usually a pipe Without a team dedicated dream that costs time and to managing contractors, money in the short term, with a lot of work is going to no guarantee of profitability in the go unused. Wideload long term.” now has a section of Quantic Dream managed to realize the team devoted to this, and this mid-project, and adapted the subsequent production has tool—but not without some lost reportedly been smoother. work. Naturally, what would help CONTINUED ON PG 12 here is some proper technical documentation of the project’s specific needs.

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0812gd_whatwentwrong_vIjf.indd 11 11/19/08 8:00:10 PM WHAT WENT WRONG?

CONTINUED FROM PG 11 POLISH The devil is in the details, but when we Insomniac had a related problem, wherein the company couldn’t talk about “immersion,” that’s often the result of maintain stable builds without a great deal of effort. Making your that particular Beelzebub. Running out of time in tools accessible is absolutely essential. the polish phase often means a game that’s rough UNCHARTED: DRAKE’S FORTUNE (Naughty Dog, Richard Lemarchand) around the edges, or which doesn’t fall in line with “We realized that we’d bitten off too much with our tools approach— player expectation. we’d tried to be too clever, coming up with convoluted approaches 8 TITAN QUEST (Iron Lore, Jeff Goodsill) “We always that were intended to solve every last problem that anyone had ever told ourselves that six months would be the right amount of time to had with each kind of tool. To make it worse, we’d gotten distracted balance and polish the game. With more than 30 hours of gameplay by our lofty aspirations, and had left it very late to implement a build at each of three difficulty levels and entirely new technology, we pipeline that let people actually run and play levels. needed all of that scheduled time and then some. Just balancing the “The moral that we took away was that even though it’s good to aim skill system, with all the combinations of masteries and skills, not high with your tools, you should choose your battles, and shouldn’t to mention the thousands of pieces of equipment with hundreds of try to solve every last tools issue that your team faces. In some thousands of variants, was going to be an epic task. cases, simple work-arounds are better and free up more time to work “In the end, we only had three months. Luckily, we were able to on the game itself.” whip the game into shape, but we also had pages of polish feature The goals were noble, as these problems were originated in a desire suggestions that we simply ran out of time to implement.” to share technology. The lesson remains the same—reign in scope The team had to compromise, focusing on the first half of the until the project’s goals are completely clear. game, and letting polish of the higher difficult levels go until near the project’s end. Not necessarily the best option for player retention. CRUNCH. Well here it is, the inevitable crunch GUN (Neversoft, Scott Pease, Chad Findley) “What’s worse than discussion. Everyone knows it’s a problem, but it a game that’s too short? One that’s too short and too easy. Due keeps on keeping on. Crunch is usually a side effect to a tight schedule and inexperience with the genre, we took a of most of the other problems on this list, and then very simplistic approach to game difficulty, putting the standard exacerbates those problems in turn. Some studios go ‘Easy, Normal, Hard, and Insane’ selection at the front of the well out of their way to avoid it—others can’t seem to game. Then we sat back and depended on the players to select the 10 help themselves, for reasons of ambition, money, or appropriate challenge level for their particular tastes. What the hell any number of things. It’s never good. were we smoking? DRAWN TO LIFE (5th Cell, Joseph Tringali) “Consistent overtime is “In the video game market, asking players to set their skill level not fun, nor is it something that should be assumed when developing before they’ve even played your game is a freaking naive way to go a game. We ended up working late weekdays and Saturdays for the about it. ... our gut reaction to the reviews was that too many people entire second half of the project. played at the wrong difficulty level—and it was our fault.” “Our studio had the perfect storm of factors that contribute to Though the Neversoft team focus tested the difficulty levels, crunch—lack of experience on the platform, an ambitious game, and choosing difficulty before playing is a daunting task for many a schedule that was too short. Combined with so little pre-production, players. This is another problem that more time can fix! But how to we were playing catch up from day one, taking far too many get that time is a much deeper problem. shortcuts to implement the required game features.” Playing catch up from day one is the key phrase here, and proper POOR TOOL IMPLEMENTATION. Building tools for schedule and project management is the solution. Easier said than done! your game is horrifyingly difficult, and the problem STUBBS THE ZOMBIE (Wideload Games, Alexander Seropian) “(In spite becomes larger when the use of these tools is not of using contractors), we crunched for a solid three months, which obvious, or when they become too big for their isn’t too bad relative to past experiences, but is way worse than . britches. This is the cousin of the lack of technical Because we let some major components slip into post-production documentation problem, and no less common. and were four months behind schedule, and we let ourselves get 9 RESISTANCE: THE FALL OF MAN (Insomniac, Marcus behind on contractor approvals, we ended up with more than post- Smith) “The flipside to homegrown tools and technology is that our production tasks during our post-production phase.” tools changed quickly and our ability to properly train people on all This example should be a reminder to us all that contractors don’t the changes proved impossible. Building assets while simultaneously necessarily eliminate crunch. A healthy post-production timeframe building the tools needed to create them is akin to trying to build a is very useful, but shouldn’t be used as a cushion when other phases house on quicksand. Artists would literally open their tools one day fall behind. and discover new interface buttons and have no idea what they were or how to use them. Many assets needed to be rebuilt, re-lighted and/ WHAT WENT WRONG? or re-animated because of changes to our builder tools. In the end, a lot of the same problems will keep cropping up in “Adding to the confusion, only a small number of programmers had development. People fall into their old working habits and let best the knowledge required to debug the problems, and these people practices slide. The jury remains out on methodologies like Scrum, but were overwhelmed with requests for help. If it weren’t for their certainly a very conscious management of projects can help identify inhuman effort and long hours hunched over their keyboards, we problems before they become critical. Let’s keep sharing those best would have never hit the launch date.” practices, and dare I suggest they be shared in Game Developer magazine? Do drop us a line! *

12 DECEMBER 2008 | GAME DEVELOPER

0812gd_whatwentwrong_vIjf.indd 12 11/19/08 8:00:21 PM Advertisement

Unreal Technology News by Mark Rein, , Inc.

Canadian-born Mark Rein is vice president and co-founder THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: 3 game set in an urban environment that could replicate of Epic Games based in Cary, POWERS MIRROR’S EDGE third-person perspective action like that seen in Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia games. North Carolina. This story was written for www.unrealtechnology.com by Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 has won freelance reporter John Gaudiosi. “We focused on the through-the-character experience, rather than through-the-gun,” said Farrer. “We wanted Game Developer Magazine’s -owned Digital Illusions (DICE) is to give a sense of physicality and let people know they Best Engine Front Line Award redefining the first-person shooter with Mirror’s Edge, can use their legs and arms to reach up and grab for the past three years, and the sci-fi that puts players in control of a something or climb up something.” “Gears of War,” the 2006 Game runner named Faith who must deliver messages to and of the Year, sold over 5 million from people who live on the edge of a society that has units for and PC. become controlled by a strict government regime. Epic recently shipped “Unreal Every move in the game, whether it’s running, jumping, Tournament 3” for PC, climbing or shooting, comes to life through a first- PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. person perspective courtesy of Unreal Engine 3. “Gears of War 2” for Xbox 360 was released on Nov. 7, 2008. “Epic had been developing Unreal Tournament 3, so I think we came along at the right time,” said Owen O’Brien, senior producer. “A lot of the PS3 support came in when we needed it. From that respect, Unreal Engine 3 gave us a good cross-platform base.” According to O’Brien, DICE chose Unreal Engine 3 two years ago because the team was going to be innovating Upcoming Epic more on gameplay than on technology, so they needed Attended Events: a stable engine that could handle fast iterations. DICE Mirror’s Edge by EA DICE D.I.C.E. Summit blended Unreal Engine 3’s tools with its own animation The game employs a momentum-based system for the Las Vegas, NV and lighting system, which was created in tandem with more action-oriented chase sequences, which allows February 18-20, 2009 Sweden’s Illuminate Labs. players to better navigate the city environment at a Game Developers “Illuminate Labs adapted their Turtle lighting system for quick pace. The skill element of the game comes from Conference Unreal and we call that ‘the beast,’” explained O’Brien. the timing of Faith’s many moves. San Francisco, CA “The engine allows us to do soft shadows and light March 23-27, 2009 “Mirror’s Edge is an action-, but it’s bouncing, and it gives Mirror’s Edge a really unique look, from a perspective that you haven’t seen before,” especially since the game is based so much on white Please email: added O’Brien. “I think people think of Unreal as a good and the primary colors. The shadows and lighting are [email protected] first-person shooter engine because up until now all very important to the game.” for appointments. first-person games have been shooters. We’re going to The unique look of Mirror’s Edge, which has received change that perception.” critical buzz from gaming media, is the result of years With multiple teams across EA developing games on of experimentation. By choosing Unreal Engine 3, Unreal Engine 3, O’Brien said “the beast” is already DICE was able to hire level designers from the Unreal being employed by several EA LA teams. development community. Thanks to the ease of use, the engine opened up new freedoms for level designers, “Unreal Engine 3 is used quite a lot at EA, and we who were able to achieve things once relegated to always share knowledge across teams,” said O’Brien. programmers. “We take things from other studios, whether it’s opti- mizations for PS3 or other technology. That’s one of the “We’d been prototyping for a long time trying out strengths and benefits of being at a company like EA.” things with the field of view and the movement and the animation rig, and we just needed something stable that we could keep hammering on,” said O’Brien. “Using For UE3 licensing inquiries email: UE3 made it easier for us to hire people because a lot of [email protected] people know Unreal and have worked with the engine. Recruiting talent quickly was attractive to us.” For Epic job information visit: www.epicgames.com/epic_jobs.html According to Tom Farrer, producer of Mirror’s Edge, the impetus behind the game was to create a first-person www.epicgames.com

Epic, Epic Games, the Epic Games logo, Unreal, Unreal Engine, Unreal Technology, the Powered by Unreal Technology logo, the Circle-U logo and Gears of War are trademarks or registered trademarks of Epic Games, Inc. in the United States of America and elsewhere. Other brands or product names are the trademarks of their respective owners. >> brandon sheffield

INTERVIEW: YUJI NAKA

YUJI NAKA IS BEST KNOWN FOR HIS ROLE IN THE CREATION OF BRANDON SHEFFIELD: Where did the idea for LET’S TAP SONIC THE HEDGEHOG. His programming skill allowed for Sonic’s come from? iconic speed, as well as the multitude of ring sprites he got YUJI NAKA: It was something I came up with while we were the Genesis console to push in its early days, alongside the working on another action game. I had noticed around that impressive-for-the-time parallax scrolling. More recently time that the Wii controller was a remarkably sensitive device, he left Sega to form his own studio called Prope, and is now capable of detecting even very small, faint vibrations. We did a developing two games, LET’S TAP and LET’S CATCH, for the Wii. bit of a test where Sega remains publisher and partial owner of his company. we placed the LET’S TAP is unique in that it’s played without touching the controller on a desk controller—the sits on top of the provided box, and and started tapping you actually tap the box to make characters move, jump, and on the desktop run, or complete other actions. around it—not only Lately, I feel that Naka has been somewhat marginalized did the Wii remote by press and developers alike. He is often described as detect that, but unfriendly and reclusive, and overly controlling of it also detected projects with which he’s associated. when we tapped I would like to propose a counterpoint here. The on a desk placed times I’ve met him, he was walking around the adjacent to the one it was lying on. Looking at that, I thought show floor of the Tokyo Game Show, seeing how that it was pretty neat, that maybe we could do something with people liked his games, or at social events. When this. From there, I thought about how up to now, rhythm games spoken to directly, without an intermediary, he’s have been largely digital in nature—made up of 0s and 1s approachable, candid, and well spoken. representing “off” and “on”—but this controller could measure There is an unconfirmed anecdote that circulated more gradual levels of input in between those two extremes. So around the Western press which states that when he left to it was a process of discovery that ultimately led to the idea, the build Prope, he offered any member the opportunity idea to take a digital game and make it analog and able to accept to go with him, and almost no-one did. This story was meant to a wider range of input. indicate his lack of relevance in the current industry. I could see BRANDON SHEFFIELD is this anecdote being true—but I would approach it from another BS: Was it difficult to find the “fun” of such a simple interaction perspective. He left to do his own thing, in a regional industry as this? secretly hunting down that is very reluctant to change, or to challenge the status-quo. YN: Well, think about it—sometimes, do you find yourself just every member of Sonic Of course nobody moved. Further, Naka’s reasons for trying to idly tapping on something during the day? I know I do it pretty Team. He definitely control projects related to SONIC become clear once you read to much all the time, and I think everybody else does too. So I the second page of this interview. thought about making that into a game somehow. That’s what does not go to sleep I find Yuji Naka to be thoughtful and driven, not arrogant, and makes this game fun, I think—the fact that it’s something every night holding an he left Sega because he still wanted to make games, not just everybody does now and again. Now, of course, there are other manage them. Though the article is brief, it’s my hope that it will music and rhythm games, titles where you’re matching some Amy doll. Email him at increase understanding both of Naka, and the constraints of the kind of rhythm onscreen. But even in the case of GUITAR HERO, [email protected]. Japanese industry. it’s still a matter of “on” or “off,” 0 or 1. There isn’t any measure

14 DECEMBER 2008 | GAME DEVELOPER

0812gd_interview_vIjf.indd 14 11/19/08 8:09:58 PM of strength. Meanwhile, with this there’s a whole spectrum of strength to the tapping. It’s something that’s really pretty innovative even within the field of rhythm games.

BS: With a lot of Wii games, my wrists end up hurting from all the flailing of the controller I’m doing. YN: Yeah, they sure do.

BS: Is this game different? Any concerns about finger fatigue? YN: Well, your fingers are going to be tired here either way. It’s a music game, after all! It’s all a matter of moderation. I’m used to it so my fingers don’t bother me at all, but when you begin, you might deal with that a bit. I BS: Is Prope focused on these types of simpler games? Shown here is the think it’s a pretty easy process. YN: We’re actually planning on making a game like SONIC right SilentBlocks minigame now. We want to keep trying to make various kinds of games. from LET'S TAP. BS: What made you decide to quit Sega, or at least no longer work under the name Sega? BS: Character games and so on? YN: Well, I could have stayed under Sega itself, but I already had YN: Yes, that’s what we’re making now. a very high position there. The game industry has a very short history behind it, and as a result, the more games you make, BS: I noticed the penguin on the promotional page [one of the the further you work your way up the company ladder, until you slogans for this game is “The world’s first game that even a become one of the heads of the whole outfit. Once that happens, penguin can play!”]—you see them on Suica [mass transit] you start running out of time to actually make games. It’s cards too. What is with Japanese people and their fascination better to keep yourself directly involved with the game—actual with penguins? process, you know? Directors are pretty high up the job ladder YN: You’re right! Well, I like them! I always have. And, you know, in the movie industry, but they’re still involved with every it’s true that even a penguin can play this. The (TGS booth) over aspect of the film they’re working on; they’re still making there, showing the visualizer—all you do in that game is tap movies their entire careers. The game industry isn’t quite like away, and there really isn’t anything more to it. Anyone from a that, and I think that’s a lost opportunity for a lot of people. one-year-old to an 80-year-old man can enjoy that mode; it’s the Before I left Sega, I was high enough up that I was looking at sort of thing you can see for yourself when you try it out. In fact, every game the company was developing. Once I was in that the controller’s so good at detecting the tapping that you can position, though, I found that I wanted to get into the nitty-gritty play it with your feet, if you actually wanted to try that. details instead with the games, including SONIC—the whole “it’d be better if this bit were like this instead of that” type BS: I’d like to see some penguin playtesting. of thing. There was a lot I wanted to do that I couldn’t gauge YN: I sure would too! until someone actually tried making it. So, at the age of 40, I convinced Sega to let me build a company—since it’s Sega BS: For that matter, this is a game that people who are missing that’s behind the company, that's the company publishing the limbs could potentially play. Did you think about that as well? games. Really, if you’re a game creator, no matter how high a YN: I can’t say I was thinking about that in particular, but position you have in the industry, you need to keep creating. It’s it always makes me happy to see a large variety of people better for the industry, and it’s more fun for everybody involved. enjoying our work.

BS: How many BS: There’s a site called ablegamers, which is written for people are in disabled video game fans. This is certainly a project they would Prope right now? find interesting. YN: Right now it’s YN: I can definitely see that, because they wouldn’t have any about 40 staff problem playing this, certainly. You can play the game with a members. single finger, even.

BS: Will the BS: Have you ever considered giving a talk about your ideas “LET’S” lineup at GDC? become a series YN: I'm bad at speeches, but I’d certainly like to go again as an of games? attendee. If I do, I definitely want to get the First Penguin Award. YN: If it sells well enough, sure. Of course, you can’t really That’s part of the reason why I’m making new games like this one. say how well it’ll sell at this point, but if it does great—if we It’s really a shame that they changed the name of it to the Pioneer can get a lot of people to play it and enjoy it—I’d love to make Award. If I had the choice, I’d much rather have the “First Penguin” another one. one someday! Even if it takes me another ten or twenty years! *

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0812gd_interview_vIjf.indd 15 11/19/08 8:10:01 PM TWISTED PIXEL'S THEMAW

MOST GAME DEVELOPERS HAVE SOME DESIRE TO make an original game based on their own ideas for characters, story, gameplay, technology, and whatever else they think would make a good /// WHAT WENT RIGHT game. It is this desire that drove Michael Wilford, Josh Bear, COMMUNICATION. The majority of the team members have 1 worked together in some fashion before joining Twisted and I to create Twisted Pixel Games. We felt that having our own Pixel, so everyone was already familiar with how to work with company was the best way for us to realize our ideas and get one another. This meant that communication was never an issue for us. them out there for the world to see. Because the whole team worked together so well, there was rarely, if ever, a time when someone didn’t know something they We believe that digital distribution on game consoles has really needed to in order to accomplish their tasks. We never had any opened up a lot of doors for new small developers like us. need to have formal scrums or any other contrived methods to aid with communication. The downloadable console game market is flooded with lots Normally if a publisher is involved with a game, developers have milestones roughly every month during the game’s development of very casual games that are relatively small scale—but we in order to show the game’s progress to the publisher. When want to bring a more retail-like experience to the downloadable developing a game for XBLA, this is not the case. Having had the experience of required milestones before, we saw the value in it. console game market. From the very beginning of the project we set up internal monthly

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0812gd_pm_maw_vIjf.indd 16 11/19/08 7:53:36 PM milestones that we would adhere to in order to ensure that we whether they were playing it themselves or watching others FRANK WILSON would keep on track with the game’s schedule. Although it was play it. We accomplished this through the game’s animations, is CTO and co-founder of not required or even recommended, we sent these milestones characters, cinemas, color scheme, and general art style. Twisted Pixel Games and to Microsoft every month so they could see the game’s progress. The biggest contributors to the game’s personality are the is the primary engine This was an incredible help in terms of keeping the game on animations. Our art director, Dave Leung, did a phenomenal job programmer on THE track, and helped build a better relationship with Microsoft. of giving loads of personality to a giant purple blob with one eye. MAW. He's been working Because of our retail background, the team was used to working The second point was to give the game “pick up and in games since 2001 in this fashion and the milestones went very smoothly for us. have fun quickly” gameplay. We accomplished this by giving the and has loved every game a small set of clear overall goals: Maw needs to eat things minute of it. He also FOCUSING ON OUR GOALS. When we started work on THE to solve puzzles and Frank needs to help Maw eat things. has a beard on his face. 2 MAW, we came up with a few vision points for the game. The third vision point was to make eating and getting powers …mail him at fwilson@ We made a conscious effort to always adhere to these vision fun. We implemented several different ways for Maw to eat gdmag.com. points throughout development. The game’s director, Josh Bear, throughout the game and changed the way that Maw eats based ensured that everyone remained dedicated to accomplishing on his size and on some of his powers in order to add variety the vision we had for the game. and personality. We also spent lots of time designing the five The first and most important vision point was to give the powers that Maw would be able to acquire. Taking the time to game personality. We wanted people to have fun with the game choose the right vision points for our game up front and making

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0812gd_pm_maw_vIjf.indd 17 11/19/08 7:55:43 PM commercial engines and middleware that were available, we determined that the best solution for us was to create our own engine but use various pieces of middleware where we thought it was appropriate. We chose to use middleware for our animation exporting and playback, physics, scripting language, and visual effects. These were areas that we knew would take significant effort to develop but were separate enough that we could use middleware to do the job for us. The rest of our engine was designed and implemented internally. One of our focuses was to ensure that all of the design tools were not cumbersome, but very easy to use while providing a large amount of flexibility to the design team. We accomplished this by putting a lot of time into our terrain and level editor early on in the development cycle. The other major contributor to this was our choice to use Lua as our scripting language. We’ve designed our engine so that our Lua scripts control everything from data loading to actor manipulation to the user interface. This means that we could make a completely different game without an effort to always stick to these points has definitely made changing a single line of C++ code, but by only changing the Lua our game better. It’s something that I think that all of our future code. The flexibility that Lua gave our engine improved iteration games will benefit from. time and allowed our lead designer, Sean Riley, to implement many of the game’s features without help from the team's lead GETTING A NICE OFFICE SPACE. While it may be a given to gameplay programmer, Mike Henry. 3 most that any company should have a nice office space, Our entire engine was built as a library so that we can easily sometimes as a very small startup there are costs that just link it in with other applications. This has proven to be invaluable aren’t worth it quite yet. with the development of our command line tools and game When we started the company, there were only 3 of us, and editor. It promotes code reuse, makes it incredibly easy to GAME DATA we started out using half of a warehouse as a temporary office ensure that all our tools are using the latest engine code, and space. This building had a concrete floor, cinder block walls, and allowed the to render the levels exactly as you a minimal amount of heating and air conditioning. The other half would see in the actual game. of the building was occupied by craftsmen who were working on the space so most days we worked to the tune of circular FITTING THE GAME INTO THE REQUIRED SPACE. One of our saws. There were many days where we had to pray that the 5 biggest concerns with developing a game of this magnitude DEVELOPER: saws didn’t start up during some of our most important phone for was being able to fit all our content into Twisted Pixel Games calls. We had to wade through piles of sawdust to get to the rest the required 150 MB. Coming from our background in retail PUBLISHER: room which was inconveniently located in the other half of the development, we typically didn’t need to worry about reducing Twisted Pixel Games warehouse. the amount of disk space used by the game. It was more often NUMBER OF We started looking around for office space, and it turned out the case that we would have so much disk space available that DEVELOPERS: that our lawyer had some space available in the basement of his we would duplicate the same data multiple times on a disk in 7 full time, 2 part time building that was formerly occupied by a urologist’s office. Due order to decrease load times. LENGTH OF to the office’s history we certainly had some modifications to The final game ended up having over 850 animations, 25 DEVELOPMENT: make like removing sinks from every room, but it also had some music tracks, over 1000 sound effects, over 200 visual effects, 9 months things that worked out very well for us as we started hiring and over 150 character and object models as well RELEASE DATE: people over the next several months. The former patient waiting as lots of other data that contributes to the disk January 2009 area was perfectly suited for a conference room and lounging space used. So, our efforts for reducing disk space PLATFORMS: area. After removing the glass window and built in desk, the usage were certainly needed and definitely paid off. Xbox Live Arcade, receptionist area was perfect for fitting the gameplay team The biggest boon to accomplishing this Windows together in one room was Granny 3D, our middleware choice for DEVELOPMENT We learned very early on that we shouldn’t underestimate the animation and mesh compression, and SOFTWARE USED: positive effects of working in a nice environment and having animation playback. Granny uses some Visual Studio, Photoshop, 3ds Max multiple bathrooms. very clever methods (that I won’t dive into here) to reduce the amount of disk space and COMPRESSION DEVELOPING OUR OWN ENGINE WITH THE HELP OF memory used by animations. The extensive set RATIO OF MODELS, MIDDLEWARE. Though our team could be considered of export settings that Granny provides allowed us to set the ANIMATIONS, AND 4 OTHER CUSTOM DATA: large for a downloadable console title, it is actually quite small compression level on a per animation basis or even on a per About 85 to 1 considering we made a 3D action/adventure/platformer from an bone basis. engine that was developed concurrently with the game. From the beginning of our engine, we built all of our data NUMBER OF DUNGEONS With a team size of 8 people as its high point, we had some driven components so that they could load data from both WORKED IN: 1 serious decisions to make about what we would use for our an easy to read XML format and from a binary format that technology. After taking a few months to evaluate the various would allow superfast load times. With the help of the Granny

18 DECEMBER 2008 | GAME DEVELOPER

0812gd_pm_maw_vIjf.indd 18 11/19/08 7:54:05 PM Game Developers Conference® March 23-27, 2009 | Moscone Center, San Francisco

Visit www.GDConf.com for more information and GDC08 proceedings. preprocessor toolkit, we were easily able to convert this data of the prototypes that we made was at about the quality level from XML to binary with minimal effort and get the benefit of of a typical downloadable console game at the time. Because it using compressed Granny files. was just a prototype, we planned to put a lot more polish and many more features into it if the title was approved. However, /// WHAT WENT WRONG it was apparent that many of the people that we showed the GETTING A PROJECT GREENLIT. When Mike, Josh, and I demo to were stuck on the idea that what we showed them was 1started Twisted Pixel, we had no idea how long it would take basically the finished product. to get a project approved for development. At the time, the Xbox Getting in too early before the console manufacturers had 360 was the only current generation console on the market and figured out for themselves what their plans were resulted in a lot thus the only console with a definite plan for how they would be of wasted time. Luckily, we were able to get meetings and face digitally distributing games. Because Microsoft’s plan seemed time with the right people early on, but because it was too early, clear, we thought they would be a good choice for our first game. it was hard to get approval to start on anything because there We also saw this as an opportunity to get in early with Sony was no official process in place. This may have been different had and Nintendo on whatever their plans would be for the digital we been a more established studio at the time. At one point, we distribution of original titles. actually did get approval for development of one of our ideas from We came up with several ideas for all of these platforms, one of the console manufacturers only to have their business created overview design documents, created some prototypes, model change, rendering the approval somewhat useless to us. and had Mike and Josh fly out and pitch some of the ideas directly to the proper people on each platform. Other ideas were TOO LITTLE TIME. This is a strange one for me. It’s kind of a merely discussed over the phone or emailed. We learned a lot 2 “what went wrong” even though it was something we had from these experiences. prepared for from the very beginning. We knew that in order to You have to be careful with a prototype. Sometimes people make THE MAW be the game that we wanted it to be in the budget don’t quite get past the fact that something that you show them that we could afford, we would have to work some pretty crazy is just a prototype and not a finished product. For example, one hours to make that happen. We were very aware of this from the very beginning. We basically just had too much work to do in too little time. We were developing our own engine and game editor while also trying to develop the game, so there were many dependencies on the order in which specific tasks could get done. Several tasks that we would have liked to have completed earlier in development had to wait until the feature was implemented in the engine before they could be completed. Luckily, we were able to get enough of the engine up and running early enough that designers could set up many aspects of levels without too many issues. We worked very hard to get the first level up, running, and to a somewhat polished state pretty quickly. This gave us a pretty good test of the features of the engine. For most features, we implemented support in the engine for the data files early on with support being added to the editor later so that designers could still use those features by hand-editing files without being blocked by editor development. We were diligent throughout the project about cutting features that just weren’t working or that wouldn’t add much value to the game. But we were careful to not strip the game of things that make it fun and give it the personality that we wanted it to have. Despite all of this, by the end of the project, everyone was working some pretty crazy hours in order to polish up all of the features that we had. For our next project, we have an existing engine and an editor that turned out very well so our designers can get started right away with setting up the game. We have lots of new features planned for the engine and editor but they shouldn’t hold up progress for the designers. As a company, we need to make sure that this timeline is not the norm. Moving forward, it’s looking like it won’t be.

XML LOAD TIMES. While we are happy with the design of 3 our engine, using XML files for nearly all of our data during development proved to really slow down our iteration time. Due to our data loading scheme for this game, we wasted a lot of time waiting for the application to startup.

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0812gd_pm_maw_vIjf.indd 20 11/19/08 7:56:37 PM From the very beginning, we designed our engine so that nearly LUA AND LUABIND’S MEMORY ALLOCATIONS. Despite the all data could be read in from both an XML format and a binary 5 great benefits that using Lua and Luabind in our engine has format. The intention was that we would use the XML format given us, it took us a few tries to get them working smoothly in during development. This allowed us to have human-readable files our engine. Using Lua and Luabind for all of our gameplay, UI, that we could glance at and easily modify, and which would give and generally everything specific to THE MAW has been a great us the ability to see what had changed from previous versions of help in development. It has helped shorten our iteration time and a file via our source control system’s history. Whenever we made made it so that some of our designers are really doing the work an official build of the game, the XML files were converted to of programmers. The flexibility and ease of use of Lua combined their binary format which significantly decreased load times, the with the ease of binding C++ classes to Lua using Luabind really amount of RAM used by the data, and the disk space footprint. put the power of creating the game into the designer’s hands. The This worked great throughout a large portion of the problems came once we started paying attention to what was development, but as we got closer to the end of the project, we happening to memory. had so many large XML files that the time it took to parse and At first, we went with a design that gave each actor its own allocate the data from the files was nearly unbearable. virtual machine to run Lua. Our plan with this design was to We still like the idea of using XML files for development for keep each actor in its own isolated environment in order to readability and historical comparisons; however we plan to enforce that all actors would communicate with each other only make this process work a little better for future projects. During through our messaging system. This proved to be a mistake development, we plan to have the game check for a cached binary because there is a certain amount of overhead with having version of a file: if it exists and the corresponding xml version is each VM plus there’s the fact that many of the Lua scripts were not newer, then the cached binary version will be loaded. If the duplicated across VMs which wasted a lot of memory. The other cached binary file does not exist or is older than the xml file, then big issue was the performance hit caused by having to run the the xml file will be converted to its binary version and cached garbage collector on each VM. before loading it into the game. This will make the initial load of We realized halfway through the project that these issues the game take longer, but should significantly decrease needed to be addressed so we reworked our the load times in subsequent loads. scripting system so that all actors and entities For comparison, using the XML files as well in the game used the same VM. This was a as some other uncompiled data at the end great boon to performance and memory usage; of development, the game took roughly 2 however there was still more work to be done. minutes to load. However, in the shipped Because we had so many objects in the same version using all binary files and other VM, it took even longer for the garbage collector compiled data, the game takes roughly 15 to check all of the objects for collection and seconds to load. By the time all of the logos perform the necessary work to clean up dead at the game’s launch have been displayed, objects, not to mention all of the fragmentation all of the data for the game has been loaded caused by this. and initialized. Obviously, this is a huge To address this issue, we did some logging to see improvement and frankly I’m amazed that what was causing the bulk of the memory allocations we’re able to load and initialize all of the game and with a fairly small effort we were able to rework our data in such a short amount of time. scripts a bit so that many fewer allocations were occurring each frame. We went from about 350–450 allocations made NOT BEING ABLE TO RUN THE GAME FROM WITHIN THE by Lua and Luabind per frame to roughly 0 to 15 depending on 4 EDITOR. Our entire engine is built as a library that links in what was going on at any given time. Obviously, this is a great with our editor so that all features of the engine are available improvement, but it still caused some issues. to the editor. So, one of the features that we planned was to be We still had to run the garbage collector when too much memory able to edit a level in the editor and then actually run the level was in use by Lua even though this could easily cause a 40 in the editor so designers could quickly and easily iterate on second or more hang while the garbage collector did it’s work. changes. Regretfully, we did not implement running the game Obviously, this is unacceptable when a user is playing the game. within the editor and instead pushed it off until after THE MAW We tried several things to help improve this, finally implementing was completed. a solution where we made modifications to Lua’s garbage So, whenever a designer made changes to a level, the level collector so that it continuously runs on another of the Xbox would need to be saved and then the designer could manually 360’s hardware threads, taking into account thread safety and launch the game to the specified level to test out his changes. At minimizing the number of required critical sections. the beginning of development, this was not a problem because We still had an issue with fragmentation, but roping off an area the data loading was quick so we thought it was safe to push of memory just for use by Lua safely kept the fragmentation from this feature off until later. However, as the project got further into contaminating the rest of the system. development, this became a problem because of the load times caused by our development XML files. /// CHEWED UP, SPIT OUT This caused tweaks that should have been very quick to take I’m very proud of what the whole MAW team has accomplished and a lot longer than they should have. If we had taken the time to am excited for us to push our next game to an even higher level of implement this feature early on, it would have had great effects quality. For our freshman effort, I couldn’t ask for better results. We on productivity and the load time issue wouldn’t have been such have a game that’s getting very positive press, that we’re proud of, a big deal. and technology that we can reuse on future projects. *

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Visual Adrenaline: Have there been any particular advances in the Modern Warfare engine to adapt it for this latest Call of Duty release?

Cesar: The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare engine was already multi-threaded and running Improvements in the game really well on dual-core systems. We completely SK\VLFVDUHUHÁHFWHGLQWKH utilized its worker threads system and threw a lot EHKDYLRUDQGPRYHPHQWRI vehicles in the game. more work at this thread to crunch. We added new IXOOVFUHHQHIIHFWVG\QDPLFZDWHUÀUHDQGEXUQLQJ effects, dynamic foliage, our own physics library, Visual Adrenaline: What sound occlusion, and vehicles. We added squads to kinds of challenges did you multiplayer and an entirely new cooperative have to deal with to create the gameplay mode. And, because it is more fun to play co-op feature? with your friends, we added a Friends list and game invites to the PC version. Adam: The biggest challenges we faced when implementing co-op were Visual Adrenaline: How well versed is your QHWZRUNWUDIÀFDQGWKHIDFWWKDW development team in multi-threading techniques? one player’s machine doubles as the server. Our multiplayer game Krassimir: The core of the team is comprised of comes with a dedicated server engineers that spent the last three years working that can be run on a virtualized RQKLJKSURÀOHFURVVSODWIRUPQH[WJHQWLWOHV³VR server at hosting companies. This we’re well versed in multi-threading. Intel supplied unloads the players’ machines from us with their latest tools, including the Intel® VTune™ computing the game state. But for 3HUIRUPDQFH$QDO\]HUDQGWKH,QWHOŠ7KUHDG3URÀOHU co-op we had to use the machine which are absolutely best-in-class. They also that is hosting the match to run both

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Former Quake* 3 world the client and the server. Also, co-op maps are much champion Kornelia Takacs brings a larger than the multiplayer maps because they are spirited woman’s sensibilities and a sharp actually the same as our single-player campaign maps. competitive drive to Treyarch design work. A lot of scripting events happen in these maps, which Kornelia works closely with Cesar Stastny, Krassimir Touevsky, and Adam Saslow to increases the load on the server as well as on the UHÀQHPDQ\RIWKH3&VSHFLÀFDVSHFWVRI network layer. To reduce the impact on the server, we the game. moved some of the scripting to the client. To some degree, this is possible because of the availability of Kornelia unexpectedly got hooked on more cores and more threads, providing additional competitive gameplay when her roommate headroom without compromising gameplay action. GRZQORDGHG4WHVWIRUQuake 1. “That was WKHÀUVWWLPHWKDW,H[SHULHQFHGZKDWLWIHHOV Visual Adrenaline: What were your programming OLNHWRSOD\DQ)36JDPHDJDLQVWDQRWKHU objectives for the release of Call of Duty: World at person!” she said. “Needless to say, once War? What new technologies did you exploit? QuakeZDVUHOHDVHG,FRQWLQXHGSOD\LQJ, EHJDQJDPLQJRQDPRUHVHULRXVOHYHODIWHU ,ZRQDWRXUQDPHQWWKDWKHOGLWVÀQDOVDW Adam: We wanted the PC version to match or *'&,MRLQHGWKH&\EHUDWKOHWH3URIHVVLRQDO exceed the game experience on the console. PC /HDJXH &3/ ZKHQLWZDVHVWDEOLVKHGDQG, gamers who invest in better CPUs and GPUs will get continued competing at various tournaments higher resolutions (1650x1080, 1980x1200) and IRUVHYHUDO\HDUVµ higher frame rates than are possible on the consoles. We believe the PC platform’s ability to scale in both Calm nerves and a steady demeanor areas allows PC gamers to realize improved, more DUHSUHUHTXLVLWHVERWKIRUWRXUQDPHQWSOD\ and game development. “You must have realistic gameplay. the ability to keep calm during your match whether you are winning or losing,” Kornelia Visual Adrenaline: Which tools did you use to observed. “Strategy and timing are crucial. complete the product development and optimization? :RUNLQJDW7UH\DUFK,KDYHWKHRSSRUWXQLW\WR play our game, but playing in team games at Cesar::HXVHG97XQHDQGWKH7KUHDG3URÀOHU WKHRIÀFHLVDPRUHUHOD[HGDQGSUHVVXUHIUHH We already had a threading library in place, but we HQYLURQPHQWFRPSDUHGWRSOD\LQJDRQHRQ ZLOOGHÀQLWHO\FRQVLGHU,QWHOŠ7KUHDGLQJ%XLOGLQJ RQHPDWFKLQIURQWRIWKRXVDQGVRISHRSOHµ %ORFNVLQRXUIXWXUHGHYHORSPHQWWRROVHW8VLQJ .RUQHOLDLVIHHOLQJSRVLWLYHDERXWWKH ,QWHO·VWRROVZHPDQDJHGWRUHVROYHVRPHWKUHDG Call of Duty: World at War release. “We have synchronization issues in our engine and to improve JUHDWIHDWXUHVRQWKH3&µVKHVDLG´WKDW our threading model overall by reducing the PDNHLWHDVLHUIRU\RXWRÀQGVHUYHUVWKDW amount of synchronization primitives and waits. \RXUIULHQGVDQGFODQPDWHVDUHSOD\LQJRQ, %HFDXVHRIWKLV3&JDPHUVZLOOHQMR\VPRRWKHU like that the multiplayer game mode settings gameplay, as well as a more immersive experience RQWKH3&KDYHDOORIWKHRSWLRQVWKDW when playing Call of Duty: World at War. appear on the Xbox* 360 version. Capture WKHÁDJQHHG,VD\PRUH"1D]L=RPELHV Visual Adrenaline::KDWLVWKHPRVWGLIÀFXOW PHVPHUL]HGHYHU\RQHDWRXURIÀFH(YHQ problem in terms of keeping the frame rates and SHRSOHWKDWZHUHZRUNLQJRQGLIIHUHQWWLWOHV video quality high? ZHUHSOD\LQJLWIRUKRXUVRQHQG DIWHUWKHLU UHJXODUZRUNGD\RIFRXUVH :KHQ,SOD\ Adam: You really need good frame rate for 1D]L=RPELHV,IHHOOLNHVRPHRQHRQDKRPH improvement show cleaning up the place . . . shooters. We started with the best FPS game ZLWKDGRXEOHEDUUHOVKRWJXQµ‡ Advertisement SPONSORED BY INTEL

engine available, which was already performing well. All we had to do from a technical “I HAVE BEEN BUILDING SOFTWARE ON INTEL® standpoint was add more visuals, HARDWARE SINCE THE EARLY DAYS OF physics, and other features PERSONAL COMPUTING. IT IS ALWAYS EXCITING without dropping the frame rate. TO SEE WHAT WE CAN ACHIEVE WITH THEIR We added ocean simulation, dynamic foliage, improved CONTINUALLY EVOLVING TECHNOLOGY.” rag-doll physics, realistic vehicle CESAR STASTNY, simulation, and more. Physics, in DIRECTOR OF TOOLS AND LIBRARIES, TREYARCH particular, makes heavy use of the processor, so the use of parallelism serves up strong dividends. I am happy to report tools and art pipeline before you audio,” he said, “we are seeing that the frame rate is still solid. hit full production. more and more gamers spending their time online playing Visual Adrenaline: Any tips Gaming Trends and our games and participating or guidelines for other developers Future Developments in online communities.” working on similar types of Mark Lamia, studio head projects? at Treyarch, sees a number In response to this trend, of trends that are changing Treyarch is investing heavily in all Cesar: Get the Intel computer games. “Aside from aspects of online gaming. Call of performance tools early in your great leaps in power that Duty: World at War was designed development cycle—even if you we as game developers will for online gaming, incorporating are doing console development. continue to harness in areas competitive multiplayer and—for They can help you optimize your like graphics, physics, AI, and WKHÀUVWWLPHLQWKHIUDQFKLVH

Whether battling alone or with a band of brothers, Call of Duty: World at War captures the grit and gruesome reality of war.

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history—online co-op play. To keep the online of this trend, Intel Software and Services Group community grounded and informed, Treyarch also offers the Intel® Laptop Gaming Technology enhanced the CallofDuty.com site, where members Development Kit (TDK), a set of libraries that make gather to critique, comment, and contribute. game code more aware of the laptop environment (including battery life and wireless strength). Mobile gaming is another prime area of interest. Mark noted, “I remember a couple of years back The future looks bright for PC gaming as VHHLQJVRPHRIWKHÀUVWODSWRSVDSSHDUDWD platform advances continue to expand possibilities. QuakeCon* and noticing how convenient it was for “Treyarch is looking forward to supporting all of the gamers to get together and play or have LAN parties.” exciting capabilities that the PC has to offer to gamers,” Mark said, “and continuing to work with Mark was convinced at that point that as long Intel to help us fully realize that power, so that PC as the hardware was powerful enough, laptops users can continue to enjoy higher-resolution would be recognized as serious gaming rigs. “As visuals, larger-scale multiplayer games hosted on CPU and graphic capabilities continue to improve customizable and dedicated servers, and more in laptops,” Mark observed, “they will continue to XVHUFUHDWHGPRGVµ‡ grow as a key platform for gaming.” In support

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: LEE PURCELL Having survived the frenetic energy of Silicon Valley in its heyday, Lee Purcell now writes on high-tech and alternative energy topics from a rural outpost in the Green Mountain State. Lee blogs on alternative energy topics at lightspeedpub.blogspot.com.

To subscribe to Intel® Visual Adrenaline, go to www.intelsoftwaregraphics.com

Intel, the Intel logo, and VTune are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. *Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. Copyright © 2008. Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. 1108/SM/CS/PDF Advertisement Allies at the top of their game Activision, Treyarch and Intel® unite on a front of unrivaled technology and insight. Developers dig in for the grand release of Call of Duty®: World at War delivering a visual adrenaline epic.

Cesar Stastny - PC Project Lead - Treyarch “It is always exciting to see what we can achieve with Intel’s continually evolving technology.”

Kornelia Takacs Adam Saslow Assistant Designer - Treyarch Associate Producer PC - Treyarch Former Female World Quake Champion

Learn more about Intel® Visual Computing at: www.intel.com/software/visualadrenaline

©2008, Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks of Blood and Gore Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. *Other names and brands are the Intense Violence property of their respective owners. Image courtesy of Activision and Treyarch. Call of Strong Language Duty is a registered trademark of Activision in the United States and/or other countries. The ratings icon is a registered trademark of the Entertainment Software Association. [GAMESCAPE] PHOTO BY ERIC BAETSCHER BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

THE HISTORY OF THE GAME DEVELOPMENT refrigerators and cost $110,000 (in 1960 with the introduction of Ralph Baer's industry is a short one. But in the half dollars), the machine could easily be Magnavox Odyssey in the same year, the century that people have been playing turned on and off without the help of an video game revolution was underway. games on video screens the art form engineer. Personal computing had arrived. has undergone a Cambrian explosion of In the summer of 1961 MIT became MOVING IN STEREO growth and diversification. Here we take the owner of a PDP-1 and installed it in Throughout the seventies, as computer a regional look at the industry’s history, the university’s computer research lab. hardware dropped in price and grew sifting through the various talent pools At that time, a loose knit group of faculty exponentially in capability, a cottage that have collected across North America and students were gathered around MIT’s industry of game developers flourished. to discover what exotic life forms have student run Tech Model Railroad Club, Initially just one or two person teams, taken root. Here we start out in Boston, drawn together by a love of gear hacking the most successful of these early Massachusetts. and science fiction. The group began to developers often found themselves experiment with the PDP-1 and worked struggling to manage their company’s DON'T LET OUR YOUTH up an ad hoc plan to do something growth as the personal computer market GO TO WASTE interesting with the computer during took off in the eighties. Video gaming as we know it today can its off hours. Even though the machine Early in its history ’s trace its birthplace to the Massachusetts was intended for complex scientific Systems was a small game Institute of Technology in Boston, MA. calculations such as nuclear weapon development team in Houston led by During the fifties the simulation, they looked at its capabilities Richard while his brother Robert who university was a hotbed and in a tremendous conceptual leap, lived in New Hampshire handled the of computer hardware decided that what it really needed to do company’s finances. By 1985 Origin research with large-scale was run a space game. The resulting two Systems had become large enough that machines like the vacuum player SPACEWAR! game was completed it was decided to consolidate its entire tube-based Whirlwind and in 1962. Steve Russell developed the operation to New Hampshire in order smaller (though still room initial version with contributions from to complete work on IV. As the filling) transistor machines J. M. Graetz, Alan Kotok, Dan Edwards, company continued to grow, Richard and like the TX-0 housed at its Peter Samson, and Wayne Wiitanen and it the original programming team longed campus and nearby Lincoln quickly became a favorite pastime at the to return to and in 1988 most Laboratory. Splitting off research lab. of ’ development crew from this research activity, SPACEWAR! soon made its way to DEC’s returned to their home state. two MIT engineers named assembly floor where the game was However, several key staff decided Ken Olsen and Harlan used as the final test on outgoing PDP- to remain behind and form their own Anderson formed the Digital 1’s. Because the computer’s memory development studio called Blue Sky Equipment Corporation (DEC) was magnetic, SPACEWAR! remained in Productions near Boston in Lexington, in 1957 to manufacture memory after shut down, lying dormant Massachusetts. Founded by cutting edge solid-state computers. Soon, until the computer was turned on in its and , Blue Sky’s first game their first fully integrated machine was new home, which more often than not would be ULTIMA UNDERWORLD: THE STYGIAN unveiled—the PDP-1. A radical new piece was a university. SPACEWAR! spread across ABYSS, which was published by Origin of technology, the PDP-1 could perform the country’s higher education system in 1992. The game was remarkably 100,000 additions per second and came inspiring new groups of young hackers ahead of its time, and its smooth- equipped with magnetic core memory to expand and refine its game play. running first-person engine combined along with a variety of peripherals Nolan Bushnell was an early convert to texture mapped 3D polygons with the including a typewriter, a paper tape reader, SPACEWAR!, first encountering the game immersive role-playing of the ULTIMA and a CRT. Although it was housed in a at the University of Utah and later at series. id Software would release its unit approximately the size of two large Stanford. Seeing the enthusiasm for the ground-breaking WOLFENSTEIN 3D only a game that sprung up wherever it was few months later and the two companies running inspired Bushnell to design his found themselves friendly competitors own arcade version called COMPUTER SPACE in the early uncharted territory of first JEFFREY FLEMING is patiently waiting for the release of in 1971. By 1972 Bushnell created . person 3D games (indeed, GUITAR HERO: SIEGE. Email him at [email protected]. With that company's foundation, along worked as a Commodore 64 programmer

30 DECEMBER 2008 | GAME DEVELOPER

0812gd_gamescape_vIjf.indd 30 11/19/08 7:50:50 PM at Origin for several months at the New interactive music making research that all established studios in the region. Hampshire location and he remained in they had been doing at the university to a Baseball legend ’s newly contact with Paul Neurath after returning wider audience. After creating FREQUENCY formed 38 Studios, which is working on to Texas to co-found id). Though very and AMPLITUDE as well as several titles a MMO with design contributions from different in tone, ULTIMA UNDERWORLD and in Konami’s KARAOKE REVOLUTION line R.A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane, is also WOLFENSTEIN 3D would together mark a of music games, Harmonix teamed up located in the Greater Boston area. sea change in video game tastes. with RedOctane to produce the guitar is based just In 1992 Blue Sky merged with Ned peripheral-based GUITAR HERO. Since its north of Boston in Andover. Formerly Lerner’s (creator of CHUCK YEAGER’S release in 2005, GUITAR HERO has become known as Mad Doc ADVANCED FLIGHT TRAINER) development a cultural force, forever changing the Software, the studio studio and became Looking Glass audience for video games. Leaving picked up development Technologies (later Looking Glass the GUITAR HERO series in the hands of on JANE’S ATTACK Studios). The combined studio created Activision, Harmonix has since moved on SQUADRON after Looking a follow up to ULTIMA UNDERWORLD called to create the ROCK BAND franchise, further Glass was forced to ULTIMA UNDERWORLD II: LABYRINTH OF WORLDS expanding on its mission of bringing the shelve the project. Since and in 1994 set up shop in Cambridge, joy of music creation to non-musicians. then they have worked Massachusetts on the outskirts of Boston. on DUNGEON SIEGE: During its almost ten-year run, Looking DIRTY WATER LEGENDS OF ARANNA, Glass would create some of the most In 1997 a group of Looking Glass EMPIRE EARTH II, STAR TREK: LEGACY, and Blue Sky's ULTIMA evocative 3D games of the modern developers including Ken Levine, BULLY: SCHOLARSHIP EDITION. UNDERWORLD: THE STYGIAN era. The company built a reputation for Jonathan Chey, and Robert Fermier Contract work is an important part of ABYSS. designing games that were thoughtful, split off to form their own studio called the game industry and Boston area’s original, and emotionally resonant. Titles . Irrational’s first effort is making a name like SYSTEM SHOCK (1994), was a co-production with Looking Glass for itself as Unreal Engine experts after (1995), TERRA NOVA: STRIKE FORCE CENTAURI on a SYSTEM SHOCK sequel. Released in work on BIOSHOCK, MASS EFFECT, and the (1996), : THE DARK PROJECT (1998), 1999, revisited the deep BROTHERS IN ARMS series. Also near Boston and SYSTEM SHOCK 2 (developed with space horror of the original game with is Orbus Gameworks, a company that Irrational Games in 1999) all carry the improved graphics courtesy of a new produces metrics gathering middleware distinctive imprint of Looking Glass. engine based on the work done for THIEF. as well as metrics consulting Unfortunately, in 2000 the company Over the next several years Irrational In addition to MIT there are a number of ran into financing difficulties and was would open a studio in Canberra higher education resources in the Boston forced to shut its doors. Because Looking Australia, create FREEDOM FORCE and its region that provide game development Glass was home to an incredible stable sequel, a new TRIBES game, as well as related programs. The Berklee College of of talent, its developers would become a new entry in the long-running SWAT Music and Northeastern University are both key figures in many of the high profile series. In 2004 Irrational revealed located within the city while the Center for companies and games that we see today. plans for a new game called BIOSHOCK Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University is Among the many alumni of Looking that would be a return to the themes in nearby Waltham and Worchester is home Glass are who would and style of the great Looking Glass to the Polytechnic Institute. later spearhead Microsoft’s Xbox project, games of its roots. By 2006 Irrational Boston occupies a unique space in , who went on to create the had joined Take Two Interactive and the history of game development. Talent beloved , and Emil Pagliarulo, who its studios were renamed 2K Boston has always been drawn to the city, lured became the lead designer on . and 2K Australia. With the release of there by educational and entrepreneurial Of the founders, Paul Neurath remained BIOSHOCK in 2007, the studio made good opportunities. And wherever smart people in the Boston area, forming Floodgate on its promise and delivered a game gather to do interesting things, someone Entertainment, Doug Church moved on to that was as intelligent and mature will surely make a game of it. * California to work on TOMB RAIDER: LEGEND as it was visually striking. BIOSHOCK’s and BOOM BLOX, and Ned Lerner joined overwhelming critical and commercial RESOURCES Sony Computer Entertainment’s Tools and success was telling affirmation of the Technology group. design principles first described by Looking Glass a decade earlier. COMPUTER HISTORY MUSEUM PLANET OF SOUND www.computerhistory.org MIT has always been an engine of new THE SPRAWL IGDA BOSTON ideas and talent for the Boston game The Boston area is home to many other www.igda.org/wiki/IGDA_Boston development community. Most recently notable developers as well. Blue Fang two researchers from MIT’s Media Lab, Games, creators of the series, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Alex Rigopulos and , brought Turbine, the developers behind THE LORD http://web.mit.edu about a radical shift in the game industry OF THE RINGS ONLINE: SHADOWS OF ANGMAR, with the creation of GUITAR HERO. When and Tilted Mill Entertainment, designers THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS they formed Harmonix Music Systems of the city building games CHILDREN OF www.ttlg.com in 1995, their goal was to bring the THE NILE and SIMCITIES SOCIETIES have

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VISUAL ASSIST X Noel Llopis

VISUAL ASSIST AND I, WE GO BACK A LONG ways. It all started on a fateful afternoon about eight years ago, during the Visual Studio 6.0 days. It was love at first sight and we quickly became inseparable. I even wrote a passionate review for Game Developer Magazine declaring our undying love to the world at large. Our love affair continued for a couple of years until Visual Studio .Net got in the way. Before long our relationship was marred by constant slow downs and crashes. Infatuation quickly gave way to frustration and then turned to loathing. Visual Assist X's We soon parted ways. Find in References During the next several years, I thought results. fondly of my time with Visual Assist. I tried to replace the void it left in my life Visual Studio. A new panel called VA View interface. The biggest improvement with IDE macros and homebrewed add- and VA Outline immediately greeted me. was that Visual Assist seems to be able ins, but it wasn’t the same. Every so often Apparently Visual Assist really changed to parse your code without causing I would download an evaluation copy, during our time apart! Neither of these any hitches or locking the IDE for a few but it confirmed what we both knew all two views seemed to be worth the screen seconds like Visual Assist’s Intellisense along: We were just not right for each real estate they were taking up, so I does so frequently. It also was able to other. Far from being able to work things turned them off. detect changes in my code right away, out, we had grown even further apart. My biggest complaint with Visual Assist making the work session very smooth. Visual Assist was bogging down the IDE from a few years ago is that it slowed Ironically, Visual Studio’s Intellisense to a halt and crashes were more frequent down the text editor very noticeably. I was still parsing my code and slowing than ever. would type away furiously, trying to keep everything down, and there’s no option to Summer gave way to winter, and winter up with my train of thought, and Visual turn it off, so I ended up disabling it the to spring. Several more springs followed. Assist would bog down the editor, slowing hard way by removing some dlls. New versions of Visual Studio came and me down, and ultimately defeating the Visual Assist continues to provide all went. Visual Assist tacked on an X to purpose of its own existence: To help me the functionality it made me fall in love the end of its name. We both grew older be a more effective programmer. So with with it in the first place. Open in Solution and wiser and learned to live without that in mind, I immediately hit the options is essential to my everyday workflow. each other. Then one day, friends and dialog box. And there it was: I could finally Even though it can be easily replaced coworkers convinced me to give our turn off the coloring of text. Awesome! with several free add-ins, Visual Assist relationship one last try. We were too However, I realized that even with text X user interface is much more polished good together to give up, they said. coloring on, Visual Assist X wasn’t causing than any other alternative I have seen. any slow downs anymore so I could type Open Corresponding File allows you to REUNITED as fast as I wanted and it could keep up toggle between cpp and header files To be fair, Visual Assist X had a lot of with the best. Even better then. and is also must-have functionality ground to make up. Not only did it I then proceeded to put it through for me. Again, this one can be easily have to address all past failures and its paces. When someone installs replaced with a macro, but this time the disappointments, but it also had to Visual Assist, they might like the font homebrewed approach wins out because compete with plain, vanilla Visual Studio. coloring, but they’re really looking for the I often want to toggle between a cpp In its current version, Visual Studio 2005 improved autocomplete and navigation. or header file and its corresponding is way ahead of .Net in terms of working Was it really an improvement over Visual unit test file, which Visual Assist has Intellisense and extensibility. This was Studio? Visual Studio’s Intellisense has no way of doing. Finally, I don’t know going to be a tough reunion. greatly improved in the last few years, how I managed to survive without the Not really knowing what to expect, I but Visual Assist seemed a bit more autocompletion of file names in #include installed Visual Assist X, and fired up reliable and its autocomplete has a better directives. Especially when working

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0812gd_toolbox_visual_assist_vIj33 33 11/19/08 7:58:14 PM The MIT Press

with deep file hierarchies from some middleware VISUAL ASSIST X packages, it really is a lifesaver.

REFACTORING STATS PRICE In addition to the oldies-but-goodies, I was pleased Whole Tomato $249 to find some new features that became instantly Software, Inc. useful. Find References proved itself invaluable 1733 Fessler St. PROS for finding where particular symbols are used and Englewood, FL 34223 1 Great productivity completely replaced my usual “Find in files” with www.wholetomato.com help. Game Sound more accurate results and better display (even 2 No crashes or AN INTRODUCTION TO THE indicating whether they’re being read or written REQUIREMENTS slowdowns. HISTORY, THEORY, AND PRACTICE and offering a pop up of surrounding code). Visual Studio versions 3 Can turn most things OF AND Multiple Clipboards is also great and it completely VS2008, VS2005, VS2003, on and off depending SOUND DESIGN blows away the counter-intuitive multi copy-and- VS2002, and VC6. on your preferences. paste built into Visual Studio. Karen Collins The refactoring functionality is new to Visual Configuration used in CONS “Game Audio may sound to the Assist X, and it was one of the things that this review: Visual Assist 1 Still can't turn uninitiated to be a frivolous pursuit, made me try it again. Even though most of the X 10.4.1647 with Visual everything off. but it is neither simple nor trivial. refactorings didn’t seem particularly useful Studio 2005 SP1 under 2 Not customizable. Game Sound shows that this art/ (Extract Method, Add Member, Document Method), Windows XP SP3. 3 Sometimes gets "lost." craft/business has an elegance and one really stood out and became a welcome a freshly blossoming history that addition to my toolbox: Rename. With it, you can allow it to stand with dignity and easily rename any symbol, and Visual Assist X unit tests involve such macros, so Visual Assist legitimacy alongside any other hu- will track down everywhere that the symbol is X loses most of its edge there, highlighting every man endeavor worthy of academic referenced and change it there as well. It’s like a variable as incorrect and constantly trying to attention.“ — The Fat Man, George smart Find and Replace in Files operation. Other rename them to something else. Alistair Sanger, Legendary Game refactoring operations seemed intriguing, but Visual Assist X is loaded with lots of small Audio Guru failed to deliver: Change Signature had a lot of features, intended to appeal to different 216 pp., 42 illus., $28 cloth promise, but unfortunately it just updated the programmers with different work styles. So you’re declaration and definition of a function, not any of guaranteed to develop your own set of favorite the calling code (even when the signature change features. Most of them can be turned off, so the only involved removing a parameter). ones you don’t like won’t get in the way. The best feature of them all though, is that I did Any long-term relationship involves accepting not get a single crash during the last few weeks the good with the bad, and this is no different. After with Visual Assist. It clearly has matured and setting a few ground rules by turning off most become rock solid. options, we’re really enjoying each other’s company again, and code seems to flow from my fingers DON'T TRY TO CHANGE ME faster than ever. We’re back together for good. Things aren’t quite perfect though. Visual Assist X continues to violate the cardinal rule of NOEL LLOPIS has been making games for just about productivity enhancers: Don’t force me to change every major platform in the last ten years. He's now going the way I work. In other words, I should be able to retro and spends his days doing iPhone development from continue working with the exact same keystrokes local coffee shops. …mail him at [email protected]. Digital Culture, Play, I always do and everything should work the same and Identity way, as if Visual Assist weren’t there. There’s A ® READER nothing more frustrating than selecting some text Book Review by Bijan Forutanpour and pressing * to replace it with that symbol and edited by Hilde G. Corneliussen have Visual Assist X take over and comment it out. REAL TIME RENDERING, and Jill Walker Rettberg Or start writing some code involving a variable THIRD EDITION “It’s a delight to read so many astute called particleSystem to have Visual Assist X BY TOMAS AKENINE-MOLLER, ERIC game studies scholars approach rename it to ParticleSystem because it matches HAINES, NATY HOFFMAN one game, in one volume. Digital the class name. Thanks, but that’s not what I Culture, Play, and Identity provides an wanted! Fortunately, it’s possible to work around EVERY NEW GENERATION OF GRAPHICS invaluable comparative resource for most annoyances by turning off most “smart” hardware that hits the stores brings with it raised the fi eld.” — Mary Flanagan, Hunter autocorrect features. expectations for games to look better, play better, College, and co-editor of re: skin Then there are the times when Visual Assist X and get the adrenaline flowing. Usually, but not 336 pp., 24 illus., $29.95 cloth becomes lost. And I mean totally lost. I don’t blame always, the goal is photorealism, at interactive it, really. This is usually in the depths of macro- speeds of 60 rendered frames a second. It often ridden code, which would be hard for anybody to falls upon the graphics programmer’s shoulders To order call 800-405-1619 • http://mitpress.mit.edu figure out what’s going on. Unfortunately, all my to deliver on this promise and be current with the

34 DECEMBER 2008 | GAME DEVELOPER

0812gd_toolbox_visual_assist_vIj34 34 11/19/08 7:58:16 PM latest 3d programming techniques, and such as an overview of the graphics tessellation, curved and subdivision BOOK REVIEW this is where the third edition of Real rendering pipeline, and the math behind surfaces. The book concludes with Time Rendering is invaluable. different types of transformations. discussions on frame buffer hardware The challenge for any graphics An interesting new addition to the 3rd and future directions. Finally, Real Time STATS programmer is finding current, edition is the chapter on the architecture, Rendering has an incredible wealth of coherent information and obtaining an history and evolution of the graphics references in its bibliography, with over TITLE understanding of the big picture with processing unit. Its amazing to think that one thousand four hundred references. Real Time Rendering, sufficient detail. Frequently this means in 2001 I purchased a GeForce 3 card for Overall, the Third Edition of Real Time Third Edition scouring the web and searching for four hundred dollars, a card that is now Rendering is definitely a worthwhile AUTHOR papers from past SIGGRAPH conference considered six generations old. upgrade from the Second Edition, as Tomas Akenine-Moller, proceedings, GDC developer conferences, The chapters on visual appearance there is plenty of new information and Eric Haines, Naty Hoffman hardware vendor SDK documentation, and texturing come next, and improve improved presentation to justify the and miscellaneous articles and tutorials. upon the explanations of bump mapping purchase. And for those who don’t own PRICE Books such as the Games Gems and and normal mapping, and are updated the previous edition, the third edition $89 (hardcover) GPU Gems series, as valuable as they to include the topics of parallax, relief, is definitely a must-have, because the PUBLISHER are, are hardcovered collections of and displacement mapping. One of material covered is essential knowledge INFORMATION papers that provide a good reference the highlights of the Third Edition is its for anyone writing code for interactive 3D A K Peters, Ltd. for solving specific problems. The old handling of the heavy subjects of lighting graphics applications—or games. 888 Worcester Street college computer graphics text by and shading, previously covered in a Suite 230 Wellesley, MA 02482 Foley and Van Dam is sorely out of single chapter. The Third Edition has BIJAN FORUTANPOUR is a senior graphics www.akpeters.com date. The gap that Real Time Rendering expanded on the subject matter and programmer at Sony Online …ntertainment in fills is the need for a comprehensive, divided it into three new chapters, on San Diego with 16 years experience in the visual Published: July 2008 modern book that focuses on theory, advanced shading, environmental lighting, effects and games industries. He is also the 1045 pp. ISBN-10: 1568814240 current algorithms, and architecture and global illumination respectively. author of Enzo 3d paint for Photoshop. www. that are key in understanding the field Radiosity, colorimetry, and lighting are enzo3d.com. …mail him at bforutanpour@ of computer graphics. It is written in an explained as well as a much-expanded gdmag.com. academic style where section on the theory and the goal is to make practice of bidirectional the reader understand reflectance distribution the material without functions (BRDF). feeding the answers. The new subject of It achieves this goal subsurface scattering is by avoiding code broached and explained, listings, excessive a must for any good mathematical formulas, skin shader. The subject and keeping the of global illumination www.rtpatch.com big picture in mind is also handled very without focusing well, introducing the excessively on DirectX new topics of ambient or OpenGL details. The occlusion and different book assumes some forms of precomputed previous knowledge lighting and precomputed of computer graphics occlusion into the picture. and programming. As with any good Once again, the last section in this chapter, university level textbook, each chapter which includes further reading and concludes with pointers for further resources is worthwhile reading as well. reading and references. The chapter on image based rendering With the exception of a few has been updated with the latest introductory chapters and a few of the methods, adding post-processing effects closing chapters, every chapter has such as motion blur, depth of field, fog, been expanded and updated from the and displacement techniques. One of 2nd Edition. The order of presentation the very valuable and more math-centric RTPatch and Pocket Soft are registered trademarks of Pocket Soft, Inc. of some of the chapters has changed, chapters is on intersection test methods, and some chapters have been split into which provides a pretty thorough list several new chapters to allow more of geometry intersection calculation depth of coverage. In some cases, the methods. There are many more valuable same material is presented, but has been chapters that have been carried over rewritten for clarity. from the Second Edition, covering The book begins with the usual topics such as collision detection, fundamentals and introductory chapters, pipeline optimization, culling methods,

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0812gd_toolbox_visual_assist_vIj35 35 11/19/08 7:58:18 PM NOEL LLOPIS >> THE INNER PRODUCT

DATA ALIGNMENT Part 1

I GREW UP ON Z80 AND X86 ASSEMBLY. Even when reading from fast, level-one whether something is aligned on a I happily moved data into my registers cache memory, unaligned access to data particular power of two, we can "&" the from anywhere in memory and back will use up more cache lines, making memory address with a particular bit without ever giving it a second thought. poor use of the available memory and mask and check for any non-zero bits. Life was nice and simple. It wasn’t evicting data that might be accessed For example, the following code checks until years later, when I started dealing again. As a result, sections of your code if some data is aligned on a 16-byte with caches, vector units, and different can thrash the cache and become major boundary: ((uintptr_t)&data & 0x1F). architectures that data alignment performance bottlenecks. Notice the uintptr_t cast to be able to became a big deal. Today, data alignment Vector operations usually force perform a bit operation on a memory is an inescapable reality, and we all have programmers to deal with data alignment address. Casting the pointer to an int to deal with it one way or another. explicitly. To squeeze more performance instead is almost guaranteed to cause Data alignment refers to where data without increasing the frequency of problems in the future because it is located in memory. All data is at least CPU cores, hardware designers have assumes that pointers and ints are the 1-byte aligned, meaning that it starts at been putting more emphasis on vector same size, which is not the case in most any one byte in memory. Data that is n- operations (which are just a type of 64-bit architectures. byte aligned is located somewhere with a SIMD instruction—single instruction Generalizing that technique, Listing memory address that is an exact multiple multiple data). One vector instruction 1 (found online at www.gdmag.com/ of n bytes. can operate on four or more data points resources/code.htm) shows a function at once, considerably improving the that verifies the alignment on a particular IT’S ALL ABOUT performance of a program that operates power of two boundary. We’ll be using PERFORMANCE over each data point serially. Vector units a lot of bit tricks when dealing with We care about alignment for a single often have a restriction that they can memory addresses at this level, so make reason: Performance. only work on data aligned on a particular sure you’re nice and comfy with all that In modern hardware, memory can only boundary. For example, Intel's and AMD’s bit twiddling. be accessed on particular boundaries. SSE vector instructions operate on data Setting the alignment for a piece of Trying to read data from an unaligned aligned on 16-byte boundaries, so it is data, unfortunately, is not nearly as memory address can result in two reads the programmer’s responsibility to align easy. The C/C++ language falls short from main memory plus some logic the data properly before feeding it to the again, without a standard way of dealing to combine the data and present it to vector units. with alignment. Not only that, but we’ll the user. Considering how slow main In general, the more you interface with need to use different strategies to align memory access is, that can be a major the hardware directly, the more careful data depending on how it is allocated: performance hit. Some platforms such as you will have to be about the alignment statically, on the heap, or on the stack. the PowerPC choose not to hide such an of your data. We’re left at the mercy of compiler- inefficient use of hardware and simply specific extensions and our own home- raise a hardware exception flagging the WORKING WITH ALIGNMENT brewed solutions. invalid memory access. Neither scenario You can only deal with alignment in low- is particularly attractive. level languages such as assembly or C. STATIC DATA Higher-level languages often don’t expose Static variables are those not allocated on exact memory locations or provide any the heap or the stack. That includes global means to change them, making all sorts of variables and class static variables. opportunities for optimization impossible. The two most common compilers we In C/C++, finding the alignment of some have to deal with as game developers data is very easy. Just examine the least (Visual Studio and gcc) offer solutions NOEL LLOPIS has been making games for just about significant bits of the memory address to allow us to align data at a particular every major platform in the last ten years. He's now going where the data is located. Memory memory boundary. In both these cases, retro and spends his days doing iPhone development from alignment restrictions are almost always the alignment has to be a power of two. local coffee shops. Email him at [email protected]. based on powers of two, so to detect Visual Studio provides the

36 DECEMBER 2008 | GAME DEVELOPER

0812gd_inner_product_vIjf.indd 36 11/19/08 7:51:48 PM THE INNER PRODUCT

__declspec(align(#)) extension. Any be aligned the same way as the member Figure 1 Waypoint variable or type tagged with that extension with the largest alignment. containing aligned will be correctly allocated on the specified That is really good news because now the Matrix4x4. alignment. gcc also provides its own Waypoint struct is guaranteed to be aligned extension, but of course, with different on a 16-byte boundary, which means that syntax: __attribute__ ((aligned (#))). the matrix member variable will also be We can create a macro that allows correctly aligned on a 16-byte boundary. us to specify alignment attributes in a platform-independent way. Unfortunately, HEAP ALIGNMENT __declspec(align()) precedes the You would hope that tagging a type symbol it modifies, and __attribute_ with __declspec(align(#)) (or the gcc _((aligned())) comes afterwards, equivalent) would also align the object making the macro slightly uglier because correctly when it’s created on the heap. it needs to wrap the symbol (see Listing No such luck. Alignment attributes are 2 online at www.gdmag.com/resources/ only used at compile-time, and the C code.htm). With this macro we can now runtime knows nothing about them when write DATA_ALIGN(int buffer[16], 128); you request to allocate a particular type in any platform. from the heap. Fortunately, we can take Sometimes we want to align all control of heap allocations and force the instances of a particular type on a alignment ourselves. certain boundary. For example, a In most cases, malloc will return a 4- 4x4 matrix class that we’re going to byte aligned block of memory. We can manipulate with SSE instructions create our own version of malloc, aligned_ always needs to be aligned on a 16-byte malloc, that allocates memory with any boundary. In that case, we can apply the alignment by building on top of standard alignment attribute to the type, not just malloc and pad the front of the memory to specific instances. block until it’s aligned correctly. The only catch is that we need to remember to call __declspec(align(16)) struct our version of free, aligned_free, on that Matrix4x4 memory when we’re done with it. { aligned_malloc will allocate a block address with a particular power of float m[16]; of memory large enough, find the two alignment, we can add the full }; first address within that block that alignment minus one, and then round has the correct alignment, and return it down to the nearest alignment (by Specifying the alignment of a member that address. aligned_free needs to masking off the bits corresponding to variable forces the compiler to align it call standard free with the originally the power of two of the alignment). relative to the start of the struct (or class) allocated memory block, so we need a it belongs to. Going back to our previous way to go from our aligned pointer to the Some platforms implement their own example, if we add a Matrix4x4 structure original pointer. To accomplish this, we’ll version of aligned_malloc. So if you don’t to a Waypoint structure, the compiler will store a pointer to the memory returned need cross-platform compatibility, you pad the Waypoint data so that our matrix is by malloc immediately preceding the should look at what your platform provides. a multiple of 16 bytes from the beginning start of our aligned memory block. For example, Microsoft has a function called of the structure (see Figure 1). The implementation for aligned_malloc _aligned_malloc, and other platforms have But what if the Waypoint structure is and aligned_free is shown in Listing the semi-standard function memalign, both placed at a random memory location? 3 (found online at www.gdmag.com/ of which work in a very similar way to the Does that mean that all bets are off resources/code.htm). There are a couple version we just implemented. as far as the absolute alignment of of interesting implementation details: Our aligned malloc and free are perfect the matrix variable? Fortunately, the for allocating plain memory blocks, C standard comes to the rescue here • We don’t know what alignment malloc but what about creating objects with a because it states the following: the will return, so we need to account for particular alignment? Next month we’ll alignment for a struct has to be a the worst case. That means that our cover that and we’ll explore the mysteries multiple of the least common multiple block has to be large enough to hold the of stack alignment. * of the alignments for all of its members. requested allocation size, one pointer, That’s quite a mouthful, so a simpler and up to the full alignment size …xample code for this article can be way to look at it is that, if alignments (minus one). found at www.gdmag.com/resources/ are always powers of two, a struct will • More bit fun: To find the next code.htm.

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0812gd_inner_product_vIjf.indd 37 11/19/08 7:51:50 PM STEVE THEODORE >> PIXEL PUSHER

THE M-WORD Consolidation hits the 3D software market

IF YOU’VE BEEN IN A CRUNCH-TIME MEDIA and security of a familiar environment ADVANCE TO GO blackout for the past several months, or would give XSI users the heebie-jeebies. Before we pronounce the graphics have shut down your internet connection The official Pixel Pusher line has always software business dead, we ought to look to avoid election news, or are the only been that any professional game artist at this deal in its historical context. game artist on the planet who’s never should be competent in at least two These kinds of corporate dramas are received a Youtube link via email, you packages. But even traditional artists are unsettling for artists because they are may have missed an interesting little famous for being emotionally attached an unsubtle reminder that we creative tidbit of news. On October 23 we learned to their tools (never ever venture an types are dependent on huge impersonal that Avid is going to sell Softimage, the opinion about Kolinsky sable brushes in corporations. “Masters of the Universe”- Montreal-based developer of Softimage mixed company!). For us, who spend so style MBA analysis isn’t part of our job XSI to Autodesk. Now that the deal has much of our lives poking at one particular descriptions, so it’s hard for us, as mere gone through all three of the biggest 3D set of dialogs or buttons, the thought of users, to figure out how to respond. modeling and animation packages belong being forced to swap them for a different Reviewing a little bit of history is often to one single company. unfamiliar set of dialogs and buttons is a good way to get some perspective; Even if you managed to miss the deeply disturbing. The fact that some XSI here’s a very abbreviated walkthrough announcement, you can probably predict the immediate reactions anyway. In the XSI community, the dominant mode was shell-shocked. The “resistance is futile” jokes and Borg-themed Photoshop jobs Any professional game artist should could not disguise the level of emotion be competent in at least two packages. But in the air. The poster on the XSI forums who simply wrote, “I think I’ll cry,” even traditional artists are famous for being wasn’t kidding. There was a smattering of optimists suggesting the deal would emotionally attached to their tools. give more people access to some of “ XSI’s best tech. A few pragmatists found consolation in the idea that the fans were so distraught they’d consider of the life and times of Softimage to help conglomeration would give cross- switching to Blender out of pique is an you understand the news. package data transfer the attention index of how emotional this issue can be. XSI may be the youngest of the big it deserves. But the most common What’s surprising, though, is that a three graphics packages, but Softimage” reactions were shock and anxiety. similar miasma could be seen in the Max the company is one of the oldest firms It’s hardly surprising that the possibility and Maya forums after the Great Buyout in 3D graphics software. The original of being forced to abandon the comfort Announcement of 2005. Emotions ran “Softimage Creative Environment” debuted high even for those not affected directly. in 1988, but in an economic environment More commonly, though, users were very different from today’s. 3D graphics grimly pondering the future of graphics was very closely akin to rocket science. software in general, rather than the For one thing, it was mysterious new fate of any particular package. Some high-tech discipline, and for another, you naysayers worried that technology needed an exotic workstation that cost would stagnate without the underdogs upward of $50,000 (that’s $65,000 in STEVE THEODORE has been pushing pixels for more like XSI striving to gain an advantage today’s dollar, for a machine less powerful than a dozen years. His credits include MECH COMMANDER, through innovation. Others fretted that than an iPhone) to do either one. It was a HALF-LIFE, TEAM FORTRESS, and COUNTER-STRIKE. He's been a consolidation in the industry means the very esoteric, very pricey business. modeler, animator, and technical artist, as well as a frequent exciting, Wild West days of graphics are Softimage 3D was the first commercial speaker at industry conferences. He’s currently content- really over. And many users of all three application to offer artist-friendly IK side technical director at Studios. Email him at packages speculated that the lack of (1991), which quickly became the gold [email protected]. competition would lead to price gouging. standard for computer animation. Many

38 DECEMBER 2008 | GAME DEVELOPER

0812gd_pixel_vIjf.indd 38 11/19/08 7:52:46 PM PIXEL PUSHER

seminal CGI films of the early 1990s It’s not surprising that the survivors tech and clean new architecture. were animated in Softimage 3D, most of that first buyout react suspiciously to Many artists have lusted after XSI’s famously . the latest. Gator system for mapping one mesh Those early days of the CG revolution By 1998, Microsoft had achieved onto another (supporting everything were heady times. Hollywood stood its strategic objective: Windows had from texture transfers to skin weight ready to hose money onto anybody triumphed and graphics workstations matching), its non-linear animation who could render a good-looking were headed for the history books. , FaceRobot facial animation triangle. Siggraph veterans still murmur Softimage became superfluous. Microsoft technology, and most recently the high- nostalgically about the heydays of studio sought a buyer and found Avid, a performance ICE system for node-based parties. And those boom times were good rising power in the digital video editing custom object creation. for the company. In 1992, the Montreal business, and one that coveted the firm went public to much acclaim. company’s visual effects and compositing WIN SECOND PLACE IN Success also changed the way the tech. Even if the core 3D business was A BEAUTY PAGEANT, industry worked. By the mid ’90s, the losing , the deal still ran a cool $285 COLLECT $11 explosion of 3D game development million, a price dot-com bubble, but Unfortunately, the engineering success shifted the industry dynamic. The ranks pretty impressive nonetheless. of the product did not translate into of 3D artists and animators expanded Avid’s stewardship was a lot healthier success for Softimage’s owners. Avid’s enormously, but few games companies for Softimage as a tech company. core business has been hit hard by the could afford to put the equivalent of a Softimage XSI, the long overdue gut-rehab proliferation of lower-cost video editing luxury sports car under every animator’s of the aging Softimage 3D, was released software like Apple’s Final Cut Pro. desk. Affordable PCs with primitive in 2000. The product started out a bit Even though the company’s main graphics cards started stealing business slow. Version 1.0 had no poly modeling product was profitable, it wasn’t from workstations, and PC-based tools, but gained steam with impressive profitable enough. To get a sense of the packages like Autodesk’s 3D Studio started making inroads against pricey workstation software. 8:CI:G;DG9><>I6A>B6<>C<6GIH6I7DHIDCJC>K:GH>IN

RECEIVE $45 FROM L6AI=6B!B6qL6H=>C

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0812gd_pixel_vIjf.indd 39 11/19/08 7:52:47 PM PIXEL PUSHER

scale, you might note that the $35 million sinister plot from inside of Autodesk—it If you’re in the same camp as the XSI sale price for the company won’t even originated with Avid’s accountants. user who wrote, “They’ll have to pry my cover Avid’s losses for the third quarter license from my cold dead fingers,” you of this year. As times got leaner, Avid live in a virtual monopoly already. needed to focus on protecting its core YOU ARE ELECTED video editing business, so it started CHAIRMAN OF THE GET OUT OF JAIL FREE? hunting for a buyer early this year. BOARD That’s not to say things aren’t going to Autodesk, home to both of XSI’s main The more interesting (but also more change. The absence of major-league rivals, was not the first buyer who was depressing) aspect of this story, though, alternatives will definitely give Autodesk approached. But it was the final one, isn’t concerned with money. You could a much freer hand in choosing both its which is the one that counts. read the whole thing as a stirring tale price points and research directions. of steadfast devotion. It was The fact that the company’s track user loyalty that sustained record to date is pretty benign is Softimage during the drift of comforting, but the knowledge the Microsoft years, when that we’re dependent on corporate technical sluggishness altruism from here on out should give might have let Max and Maya us pause. Autodesk has put some completely marginalize genuine effort into trying to explain the the original Softimage. The deal to users (there’s an interesting emotional reaction to the news interview featuring the general managers is proof of how viscerally loyal of Autodesk and Softimage up on the users are to their favorite tools. Autodesk web site, with more info Unfortunately, that loyalty promised as the deal solidifies), but is a double-edged sword. The apart from reassurances that XSI isn’t last few versions of XSI were going to go away overnight, the Magic 8- consistently excellent, but no Ball is pretty cloudy. combination of cool features The uncertainty is tough, particularly and good design managed for anxious XSI users, but really for us all. to seduce away enough We know the mantra: “It’s the artist, not users from other packages the tools.” But in practice, it’s sometimes to secure Softimage’s future. hard to say where the artist leaves off What lessons can you learn from this They competed on tech and features, and the tool begins. The feeling that such little history? and did a great job, but it wasn’t enough an important part of our lives is out of First, it doesn’t provide a lot of to overcome the entrenched loyalties of our control is unnerving. evidence for conspiracy theories about Max and Maya fans. What can we do about it? As individuals, monopoly power. Supplying 3D software Individual artists might admire this we have to be open to new software and is pretty small potatoes in the grand feature or that bit of UI, but collectively new ways of working, which makes for scheme of capitalism. It’s been said that we’re reactionaries. We stick with what an environment where companies have there are only about half a million seats we know. On top of that, most studios a real incentive to give us new and better of full 3D packages in the world, which have tools and processes designed tools. As studios, we must invest in in- sounds like a lot, but is actually less than around a particular package, and no one house tools rather than rely too faithfully the number of people in the beta program is eager to chuck those investments on any single vendor. As an industry, we alone for Photoshop. It’s not a market in for the sake of sexy icons or a cleaner must push harder for more consistent which achieving dominance is a huge interface. open standards in data formats and for financial win. We don’t really reward tools companies open-source tools so we can make our All three turnovers at Softimage have for pushing the envelope. Even when pipelines less dependent on the ups and been driven by strategic concerns something new breaks onto the scene, downs of individual companies. that didn’t have anything to do with we try to shoehorn it into our existing None of these steps will magically monopoly power or market domination. workflows rather than embracing the unwind the clock, but they will give us Microsoft bought Softimage to catalyze new. We’re the last people to denounce a little more input into this critical part the switch from workstations to PCs. monopolies or phone the Federal of our lives. Or, we could all switch to Avid bought it to solidify its effects and Trade Commission. Most of us have Blender ... but man, I hate those menus! compositing business and saw modeling already folded our hands by becoming It’s not like Max. You couldn’t pay me and animation through that prism. The emotionally attached or technically enough to switch. * most recent sale didn’t originate with a beholden to particular bits of software.

40 DECEMBER 2008 | GAME DEVELOPER

0812gd_pixel_vIjf.indd 40 11/19/08 7:52:49 PM DAMION SCHUBERT

>> DESIGN OF THE TIMES

WRITING BETTER, SHORTER SYSTEM DOCS

IT’S ALWAYS ASTONISHING TO SEE THE CONSIDER THE AUDIENCE Who cares about the history of the vast disparity in standards for game The most important thing to remember weapon factory that devised the Huge design documentation. Every team and for any document is to consider the Honking Gun? Who wants to know why company seems to have its own ideas audience that it is written for. Design the Gods had decided to allow players to of how to present ideas. I’ve also seen documents for game systems are unlearn all the boxes in their skill tree? hundreds of sample design documents usually written for multiple audiences. Most programmers I know have better from dozens of would-be designers when Other designers read it to get design things to do than read all that piffle. Such they submit them as work samples along consensus, producers and project as, say, code the game. with their resumes. managers read for scheduling, Q/A reads And let’s not forget: shorter design All these documents seem to have for building test plans, and programmers documents are easier to write and at least one thing in common, though. read for actually building the thing. maintain. It’s always faster to write Most game design documents I’ve seen While the other audiences are a concise two-pager than a 30 page really stink. important, the most important goal of design bible—as well as faster and The lack of more accurate to standards in writing Design documents that are too long incorporate changes good game design into as the design documentation aandn too detailed are almost impossible shifts throughout the has resulted in to keep accurate and up-to-date. creative process. most designers Longer doesn’t and design teams “ necessarily mean shooting from the hip, throwing a design document is to ensure that better. The Gettysburg Address everything but the kitchen sink into the design is communicated clearly, was only 256 words long. The U.S. a game design document, and then and the feature is developed to spec. Declaration of Independence: 1337. being flabbergasted when programmers As a result, a good place to start is to Both” seemed to do a pretty good job of choose not to read them. actually ask your coders to evaluate getting their point across. Here’s a hint: if programmers are your design documents, and ask them if asking you to rewrite your 10 page there is a way that you could make these KEEP IT RELEVANT design document into a half-page of documents more effective. I was once being interviewed by a bullet points—and you can—your design Sometimes, getting the answer to this creative director when, midsentence, document presentation probably has is like pulling teeth, but when I ask the another designer literally wheeled in a room for improvement. So what makes question, I typically get the same three few copies of the design document. On a a good game design document? Here’s requests: keep it short, keep it up-to- trolley. The design document was more another hint: what did your programmer date, and preferably deliver it in a bullet than a foot thick, and required multiple just ask you to do? point list. Simple. binders for a single edition. And now, paradoxically, I’m going to These design documents are almost spread this into a two page article. always doomed. I know of another studio that referred to a similar tome as the KEEP IT SHORT ‘Big Book of Stupid’. It had been written The most common mistake I see in game in preproduction, but was so huge and DAMION SCHUBERT is the lead combat designer for STAR design documentation is that most of unwieldy that the programmers never WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC at BioWare Austin. He has spent nearly them are way too long, and way too referred to it, which resulted ultimately in a decade working on the design of games, with experience on in-depth. Too many designers try to nobody taking the document seriously. MERIDIAN59 and SHADOWBANE as well as other virtual worlds. write books, thinking that every word is Attempts to refer programmers to the Damion also is responsible for Zen of Design, a blog devoted to important. We are, as tradesmen, too often document resulted in responses akin to, game design issues. Email him at [email protected]. in love with the sounds of our own voices. “Yeah, whatever, what do I really need to do?”

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0812gd_design_vIjf.indd 41 11/19/08 8:07:10 PM DESIGN OF THE TIMES

Needless to say, the final game looked ILLUSTRATE Don’t cut those ideas, but plan for nothing like the design document. A picture is worth a thousand words, and the iteration. Mark core ideas that must Design documents that are too long nobody likes reading design documents be completed no matter what at the and too detailed are almost impossible anyway. It’s on you, the designer, to front of the document, and give them to keep accurate and up-to-date. As find the simplest, most concise way to all necessary detail. Put less crucial or this happens, the documents lose their communicate your system to others. well-formed ideas in an appendix near credibility, which results in them being Consider any possible avenue: Visio the end, clearly marked as a place where used less, which ultimately ends up in diagrams, video clips from other movies design iteration could lead. Don’t spend design documentation largely being and games, mocked up screenshots, excel too much time designing for these a huge time sink that most projects graphs. Visual aids can often get the point features that are likely to be cut. And cannot afford. across the user much quicker and more don’t get emotionally involved with any effectively than text. These are also much idea that is way down on the horizon. LEARN WHAT easier to discuss freely in a meeting with NEEDS NO EXPLANATION implementers or other designers. THE POLITICAL Yes, your guild system may require 6 And sometimes, text is the best way IMPLICATIONS different confirmation boxes, but each to illustrate. Writing a short piece of Designers, you are not being paid by of those confirmation boxes does not prose can help make complex system the word. More painfully, the opposite require its own GUI mockup and page-long interactions more clear, and can also help is true: there are severe political explanation of what each button does. It to make the feature more exciting. But ramifications for design documentation can even cloud the issue—if five of the use this sparingly: Anytime you "sex up" a that is too long and too in-depth. Big dialogs are identical but one is crucially document with whiz-bang descriptions of design documents feel like big features different, you run the risk that the coolness, ask yourself if you are making that take a big time investment. I difference will be lost to an implementer it harder for programmers to find their have literally seen programmers call not reading carefully. task list. I’ve found the most effective a feature a six-month feature simply Don’t skimp on your by feeling the heft of design documents: if the document. I’ve you care about a detail Callout boxes (like this one!) are a also seen projects that’s different, include great way to emphasize or sex up a get doomed because it. But by the same the sum of all their token, don’t document document without making it harder for design documentation features that are “ programmers to find the information made the project obvious or trivial. We they really need. an insurmountable know that the little X mountain that could in the corner of the GUI never be completed. will close it. way to use such textual illustrations is in Lead designers and producers have Don’t try to solve problems that clearly-defined callout boxes. This allows very limited budgets and usually aren’t yours to solve, such as how programmers to safely ignore the prose” intractable time restraints to work within. much memory needs to be reserved while they complete the feature. Proposing a wacky system? If you’re for quest variables. Tell the coders, as a lead and you have limited resources, simply as you can, what the end user PLAN FOR ITERATION what are you going to be drawn toward, requirements are (“the player needs When tasked to spec out a new system, the simple system described in a two- to have 25 quests at a time, and may most designers over-design. They page document (counting illustrations!), complete 5000 quests in his lifetime build fantasy land wish lists with every or the 30 page manifesto, complete with that can’t be repeated”). Don’t forget, possible bell, whistle, and kitchen sink pompous backstory, nonsensical design programmers like solving problems, and that they can think of, and throw it into theory, and unworkable crack? when it comes to nitty gritty technical the design document—just in case. Ideas are cheap in this industry. issues, they’re probably better at it than This approach is usually flawed on two What separates the good designers you are anyway. fronts. The first is that you never have from the bad is the ability to get those And don’t cut and paste from other time to do everything you want to do, ideas made, and then make those ideas documents. Doing so is a good way to and those features just end up bloating fun. It’s not enough to have a great ensure that one of the two docs will go the document, making the feature idea – you have to figure out how to out of date as your design shifts via seem bigger and harder to code. The communicate it as well. Design small iteration. If another document has crucial second, and far more crucial, is that systems, plan for iteration, and identify information to help people understand once the feature is partially coded and places for expansion. your system, link it instead. suddenly tangible, other, more crucial The best way to make this happen will and obvious improvements and fixes vary from team to team, and project to become clear. project. But when in doubt, try brevity. *

42 DECEMBER 2008 | GAME DEVELOPER

0812gd_design_vIjf.indd 42 11/19/08 8:05:26 PM JESSE HARLIN

>> AURAL FIXATION SQUASHED iPhone compression options for music

THE CASUAL GAMES MARKET CONTINUES compressed with a 2:1 ratio down to of rounding the data up to the nearest to boom, and with it come enormous 2.52MB. To encode the A- and µ-Law frame boundary. leaps in mobile gaming technology. files within Peak, the source file needed To test the .MP3 format, I again used Apple’s iPhone is now one of the most to be converted into an .AIF file. On the iTunes for the conversion and compared popular mobile gaming devices and has positive side, following compression, two different quality settings: 192 kbps turned into yet another SKU that audio both the A- and µ-Law files retained their and again 128 kbps. While both files were content creators may need to support in seamless loop points perfectly. However, smaller than the AAC files—707k and a multi-platform development cycle. there was a noticeably loud continuous 472k, respectively—the same need to iPhone games, due to a 2GB maximum crackle of compression artifacts which round up to the nearest frame boundary size limit, require an intelligent approach seriously degraded the sonic quality of resulted in an additional 1764 samples to audio footprint management. both files. of silence added onto the end of both Thankfully, the iPhone supports a The next smallest compressed file files and an audible skip in the loop wide array of audio formats including used Apple’s own Apple Lossless Audio point. Sonically, the compression was Linear PCM, MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless, Codec (or ALAC). A number of programs beginning to take its toll and while the IMA/ADPCM, A-law, µ-Law, AMR, and iLBC. will convert into Apple Lossless such 192 kbps file sounded better than the The iPhone also supports Audible.com’s as dBpoweramp Music Converter or 128 kbps file, neither sounded as good as audible formats 2, 3, and 4. However, SoundConverter, but by far the easiest the 128 kbps AAC file. as they are a proprietary format with to use and most common program is a Lastly, since I was interested in figuring proprietary encoding technology, free download of iTunes. Apple Lossless out what would have the smallest size these options aren’t available for game compressed the source file down to but also the greatest quality, I decided development. Noticeably missing, 2.39MB and maintained the seamless to not test the iLBC or AMR file formats. unfortunately, is the ogg vorbis format. loop while offering no audible degradation The iLBC, or internet Low Bit-Rate Codec, Music files are most likely to be the in sound quality. is a format specifically designed for largest audio files in an iPhone game, so Much like the A-law and µ-Law files, streaming speech online with a set compression formats become that much the IMA/ADPCM conversion within Peak quality level of 8 kHz/16-bit audio. AMR, more important. With so many options necessitated a conversion to .AIF. Following or Adaptive Multi-Rate compression, is available, I decided to take a sample conversion, the IMA/ADPCM file also the standardized speech codec in the file, convert it into each of the available retained a seamless end-to-end loop but cellphone industry and uses a set quality formats, and compare the results in had a much smaller file size than A-Law, µ- level of 8 kHz/13-bit audio. order to find out which format offers the Law, or ALAC files with a decrease in its file highest quality at the smallest size. size down to 1.35MB. While I didn’t hear PARSING THE DATA any noticeable change in the quality of Of the larger files, with a serious MY GRAND EXPERIMENT the audio, it may be worth noting that the degradation in audio quality and the For my control music file, I used a 44.1 audio file was actually 8 samples longer worst compression ratio of all of the kHz/16-bit .WAV file with a length of 30 after conversion into IMA/ADPCM. options, both A- and µ-Law are easily seconds and a size of 5MB. Additionally, For Apple’s own AAC format, I again ruled out. Apple Lossless sounds the file was authored so as to loop tackled the conversion process within excellent along side the original file and seamlessly from end to end upon iTunes which gave me two different maintains the loop point cleanly, but playback. Following the conversion quality settings: 128 kbps or 256 kbps. doesn’t save much in terms of file size. process, the largest files were the The quality of both was decent with even IMA/ADPCM compression sounds great A-law and µ-Law files, both of which the 128 kbps file showing little difference and maintains the loop cleanly, but may from the source .WAV, even though some not compress files enough if you’re using clarity was noticeably lost particularly multiple music files within the game. in higher frequencies. The 256 kbps file As for the smaller files, AAC definitely compressed down to 950k while the 128 outperforms MP3 compression—even kbps file shrunk to an impressive 480k. at 128 kbps. However, both formats will However, conversion to AAC destroyed require additional programming support the seamless loop with an additional to help skirt the issue of frame boundary JESSE HARLIN has been composing music for games 3080 samples of silence tacked onto limitations and the additional silence this since 1999. He is currently the staff composer for LucasArts. the end of the file in both instances as adds onto the end of each file if music You can email him at [email protected]. the conversion goes through a process files are intended to loop. *

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DECEMBER 2008 | GAME DEVELOPER 47 MATTHEW WASTELAND >> ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

BUG ME NOT Q/A reports from the depths of hell

THE PRESENCE OF THE MULTI- GAME IS UNRESPONSIVE WHEN PLAYING BORE LASER CANNON IS CLEARLY OVER A 2400 BAUD MODEM ANACHRONISTIC AND MAKES NO SENSE WHEN I WAS PLAYING Description: When attempting the play Description: According to Space THE GAME, THE GAME the game while connected to the Internet Chronicles of the Horsehead Nebula, FROZE... via a 2400 baud modem, the user vol. IV, the Multi-Bore Laser Cannon was experienced multiple instances of lag and invented by Granolian scientists in 8304 DESCRIPTION: I WAS PLAYING slowdown. It was so bad as to make the S. G. E. (pp. 115-117). However, the events THE GAME AND IT FROZE. game unplayable, even on my state-of- of the game, particularly those that occur the-art Pentium Pro system. on Exodus Mining Station, appear to be Steps to reproduce: occurring well before 8304, considering 1. Put the game in the disc tray THE SNIPER RIFLE the fact that 1. Commander Banson and start playing it. IS COMPLETELY states early on that, “the war back home 2. Walk 56 steps to the left and OVERPOWERED has taken a large toll on us all,” which drink the green potion. Description: Every time seems to indicate that the Fourth Great I play in a multiplayer War of Redemption is still ongoing at this 3. Explore the caves and proceed match, other people keep sniping me time, and 2. the player can come across to the point where the wizard and I lose the round. I don’t understand numerous objects which resemble the talks to you, then skip the why such an unbalanced weapon like the “hexafractal cuboids” as seen in Space dialog after about the third sniper rifle is even in this game. Nobody Chronicles: The Chronicles (e.g. season 2 panel. I forgot what it said. should be allowed to kill me instantly episode 3, season 2 episode 7, etc.) and 4. Hit the attack button like that with one shot just because they it is understood to be canon that Space repeatedly for five minutes. practiced at the game and now have the Chronicles: The Chronicles starts in 8228 skill to aim the gun while it’s zoomed in S. G. E. (see Wikipedia article on Space 5. Pause the game and leave it and precisely target my head. It’s just Chronicles for detailed timeline), and on the Pause menu for about not fair. 3. there is no satisfactory explanation as long as it takes to make for how Granolian science would find its and eat a microwave burrito, I IT’S SHOULD BE ITS, MORANS!! way into United Space League territory think like 15 minutes Description: As anyone with half or given the punishing trade embargo that 6. Unpause the game, turn on maybe I should say a quarter or less of has been in place ever since the Treaty all the cheats, warp to the a brain already know, “it’s” a possessive of Overt Purpose was signed by the vampire’s lair and shoot the adjective and “its” the contraction of Intergalactic Power Council (as described panzerfaust at him over and “it is.” This mistake is so common and in detail on the back of the blister card over as fast as possible. one of my biggest pet peeves in life. packaging for McFarlane Toys’ excellent Unfortunately I have to say this game action figure of High Rhetor Vindicto), 7. Notice that the game has is riddles with these stupid and frankly which was over six Astroyears prior to the frozen. amateur mistake. Every single time I events depicted in the game. Please do receive a quest from a quest-giver I will something about this because if this is Repro rate: 100% (1 out of 1 try) read his text and he will say something not fixed the player’s immersion will be like: “The forest? It’s right around the irrevocably shattered. corner” and obviously he should be THE LATEST BUILD HAS A BAD TEXTURE saying “its right around the corner,” when Description: the latest build of the game I inspect a item I read the descriptions has a bad texture in the first room. like “this sword is magical, its power Instead of wallpaper on the wall there is burns bright” but in correct English it MATTHEW WASTELAND is a pseudonymous game just a white image with text that reads would be supposed to say “it’s power developer who has a fairly common first name. Email him at “F—K THIS, I QUIT”. Is that intentional? burns bright.” Sorry to the team that [email protected]. Just checking made the game, but your idiots. *

48 DECEMBER 2008 | GAME DEVELOPER

0812gd_arrested_dev_vIjf.indd 48 11/19/08 8:08:58 PM