September 2010
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CONTENTS.0910 VOLUME 17 NUMBER 8 POSTMORTEM DEPARTMENTS 20 RAVEN SOFTWARE'S SINGULARITY 2 GAME PLAN By Brandon Sheffield [EDITORIAL] After creating a number of high-profile licensed titles, the developers The Power of Mystery at Raven Software had an idea for an original shooter with a unique time shifting mechanic. To convince their parent company, the team 4 HEADS UP DISPLAY [NEWS] rapidly built a demo that made judicious use of pre-existing assets HALO 2600 and Hirokazu Yasuhara's design notebook. and engine technology. This approach paid off over the course of the project by putting the design focus for SINGULARITY squarely 27 TOOL BOX By Tom Carroll [REVIEW] on gameplay. By Rob Gee, Brian Raffel, Steve Raffel, Jon Zuk, Dan CrazyBump 1.101 Vondrak, and Gustavo Rasche 31 THE INNER PRODUCT By Noel Llopis [PROGRAMMING] FEATURES Data-Oriented Design 7 BIG WARS 34 PIXEL PUSHER By Steve Theodore [ART] Massively multiplayer combat is the new frontier for First-Person Big Screen Blues Shooters. While there are a number titles that combine fast-paced, FPS gameplay with a persistent MMO-style world, hosting truly 36 DESIGN OF THE TIMES By Soren Johnson [DESIGN] large numbers of players at once remains a technical hurdle. Here, The Chick Parabola veteran networking engineer Lin Luo proposes a new approach to client-server architecture that uses a central server to coordinate the 39 AURAL FIXATION By Vincent Diamante [SOUND] distribution of data across multiple server systems. By Lin Luo SFX Frequency Mapping 15 HOT FAILURE 40 GOOD JOB! By Staff [CAREER] Large-scale playtesting is usually a luxury that only big studios and Chris Archer Q&A, who went where, and new studios. publishers can enjoy. While it is a crucial step in tuning gameplay, how can small teams and individual developers gather playtest data? As a 42 EYE ON GDC By Staff [GDC] one-man Android developer, Chris Pruett approached the problem by GDC Online announces new panels and lectures. building an event-logging system into his game REPLICA ISLAND that gathered player performance data automatically. After being aggregated 44 EDUCATED PLAY By Tom Curtis [EDUCATION] and drawn onto a heat map, the resulting metrics quickly showed where DREAMSIDE MAROON gameplay needed to be tweaked in order to provide a smooth user experience. By Chris Pruett 48 ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT By Matthew Wasteland [HUMOR] Consensus Reached COVER ART: JOE MITCH AND THE SINGULARITY ART TEAM WWW.GDMAG.COM 1 GAME PLAN // BRANDON SHEFFIELD www.gdmag.com 600 Harrison St., 6th Fl., San Francisco, CA 94107 t: 415.947.6000 f: 415.947.6090 SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES THE POWER OF MYSTERY FOR INFORMATION, ORDER QUESTIONS, AND HEADLINE ADDRESS CHANGES HOW THIS SUBSET OF LUCK CREATES THAT "JUST ONE MORE" FEELING t: 800.250.2429 f: 847.763.9606 e: [email protected] FOR DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION “NOTHING IS SO FRIGHTENING AS WHAT’S BEHIND THE something good in them—the excitement is in not www.gdmag.com/digital closed door. The audience holds its breath along with knowing just how good it’ll be. This keeps players the protagonist as she/he (more often she) approaches digging for more chests to get that epic loot. The same EDITORIAL that door.” So writes Stephen King in his non-fiction applies to items grabbed from felled monsters. PUBLISHER book on horror, Danse Macabre. King was not the first Taking it further, this idea of mystery applies to Simon Carless l [email protected] to make this point, nor will he be the last—with the right dialog-heavy RPGs like DRAGON AGE or the PERSONA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Brandon Sheffield l [email protected] setting, the closed door, with all its possibilities, can series. Whenever the player is given a set of response PRODUCTION EDITOR be a frightening thing. Contrast that with an open door choices in a dialog scenario, there is an air of Jeffrey Fleming l [email protected] with light streaming through it, a traditional symbol of mystery—how will the other character respond? You ART DIRECTOR hope. But the closed door nags at you—don’t you want generally have some sense of it—choices generally Joseph Mitch l [email protected] PRODUCTION INTERN to know what’s on the other side? The real power of yield semi-predictable responses—but again, you don’t Tom Curtis the closed door is the mystery behind it. So long as it’s know just how it will affect your relationship with this CONTRIBUTING EDITORS closed, the possibilities remain infinite. That constant character in the long term. Therein lies the mystery. Jesse Harlin Steve Theodore barrage of mystery is incredibly enticing to players, and This not only helps strengthen the illusion Daniel Nelson is often directly responsible for that “just one more ...” that you’re building a relationship with a character Soren Johnson feeling that many games aspire to. (alongside positive and negative feedback, which both Damion Schubert ADVISORY BOARD This idea has been used in games for years, aforementioned games provide), it also keeps players Hal Barwood Designer-at-Large occasionally in ways that are analogous to the one digging to see what will happen. The “just one more” Mick West Independent Brad Bulkley Neversoft King discusses, such as the simple build of tension idea returns. Clinton Keith Independent you might see in the SILENT HILL series. As the player Brenda Brathwaite Independent approaches a locked door, disconcerting noises MYSTERY VERSUS LUCK Bijan Forutanpour Sony Online Entertainment Mark DeLoura Google increase in intensity, and maybe the world begins » This sort of mystery I’m talking about is a subset Carey Chico Independent to erode, as happens in the series. The player has to of luck. It’s far more specific, and as a result is easier go through the door, there’s no other way—but they to control. It can be frustrating in a game like PUZZLE ADVERTISING SALES almost don’t want to. The player is complicit in the QUEST to have your opponent hit you with a huge GLOBAL SALES DIRECTOR act of approaching the door, which by turns increases chain of “random” attacks, or to have your weapon Aaron Murawski e: [email protected] or decreases the horror, depending on how much the randomly break in an RPG. That sort of luck can be t: 415.947.6227 MEDIA ACCOUNT MANAGER player already knows. In film, the viewer is less likely frustrating. With the mystery of a treasure chest that John Malik Watson e: [email protected] to have advance knowledge of what lies beyond—but may drop an epic weapon though, the outcome is t: 415.947.6224 in games, we might have gone through the same always positive, which makes for higher engagement GLOBAL ACCOUNT MANAGER, RECRUITMENT Gina Gross e: [email protected] scenario a few times, diminishing the effect. and less frustration. t: 415.947.6241 Mystery isn’t always good though—choosing a GLOBAL ACCOUNT MANAGER, EDUCATION UNREALIZED DREAMS difficulty level before you’ve started the game, for Rafael Vallin e: [email protected] » Unfortunately, the payoff is usually not as example, tends to lead to frustration. t: 415.947.6223 exciting as that anticipation of terror. Essentially, the Genres other than RPGs seem less able to use imagination usually cooks up something far more the more straightforward tricks. BORDERLANDS is an ADVERTISING PRODUCTION exciting than anything we can deliver as developers. exception with its randomly generated weapons found PRODUCTION MANAGER Pete C. Scibilia e: [email protected] The concept is similar to the classic “Pavlov’s Dog” in treasure chests, but by and large FPS games have t: 516-562-5134 experiment, in which researcher Ivan Pavlov rang a to rely on a set group of weapon drops from downed bell (or gave some sort of other stimulus) every time enemies. So how do we get this “just one more” REPRINTS a dog was given some food—over time, the dog would phenomenon in other genres? It’s a very “gamey” WRIGHT'S MEDIA start salivating as soon as it heard the bell, regardless sort of interaction, which potentially goes against the Ryan Pratt e: [email protected] of whether it got any food, because it associated the realism many games strive for, but MMOs and some t: 877.652.5295 sound with a reward. In games, as long as there are online FPS use the anticipation of leveling up in a constantly new things to anticipate, the mind can similar way, and fighting and racing games often use AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT continue to invent new potential rewards. unlockable characters or outfits. These are far less of TYSON ASSOCIATES Elaine Tyson This is basically the way we condition players with an addictive gameplay element than they are a bonus, e: [email protected] LIST RENTAL Merit Direct LLC things like treasure chests and monster drops. They but the concept is similar. t: 914.368.1000 know there’s something in there, so they’ll fight through In all, I think most games would be well served by hell and back to get to it, even if (in the case of JRPGs including some element of mystery. It adds stickiness, MARKETING especially, but also in Western stalwarts like DIABLO) it and keeps players playing long after they might MARKETING SPECIALIST Mellisa Andrade could be a trap, or a monster in disguise, or have some otherwise have stopped. It forms a strong link with e: [email protected] other sort of ill effect. Over the years, we’ve come up the player, so that they keep playing “without knowing with a pretty well-accepted formula for this, used (with why.” Games that don’t do this tend to fall by the some variation) by games from WORLD OF WARCRAFT to wayside.