THE LEADING GAME INDUSTRY MAGAZINE vo L 1 8 N o 9 o c T o b er 2011 INSIDE: R ea c ti v E game ar c hite c tures w ith R x d e pa r T m e NTS 2 GAME PLAN By Brandon Sheffield [EDITORIAL] Interactive History CoNTeNTS.1011 volUme 18 NUmBer 09 4 HEADS UP DISPLAY [ ne w S ] New games for vintage consoles, Michael Jackson visits Sega, and ASCII Animator released. 27 TOOL BOX By David Hellman [REVIE w ] Corel Painter 12 p o ST m o r T e m 34 THE INNER PRODUCT By Peter Drescher [PROGRAMMING] 20 bulletstorm Programming FMOD for Android BulleTsTorm is a colorful skillshot-fest that took 3.5 years to make. It 40 DESIGN OF THE TIMES By Soren Johnson [DESIGN] didn't perform quite to expectations at retail, but the experiment was Taking Feedback by all other metrics a success. This straight-shooting design-focused postmortem discusses everything from emergent feature discoveries 42 PIXEL PUSHER By Steve Theodore [ART] to downloadable demo woes. By Adrian Chmielarz Get The Memo 44 the business By Kim Pallister [ business ] F e aTU r e S Efficiency...For Whom? 6 game changers 46 GDC jobs By Mathew Kumar [ career ] The game industry is a dynamic and fluidly-changing one. But who Recruitment at GDC Online (and what) are the companies and concepts that are shaping the 47 AURAL FIXATION By Jesse Harlin [SOUND] game industry today? Our answer to this question is 20 companies, Separation Anxiety processes, and concepts that are changing the game. By Brandon Sheffield 48 GDC NEwS By Staff [ ne w S ] 2011 Game Developers Conference Europe Hosts More 13 reactive game architectures Than 2,100 Attendees, GDC China Honors Winners Of Reactive programming represents a different way of thinking about Shanghai, Beijing Game Jams code, moving toward a model that focuses more on expressively describing when things happen in games. Gary Dahl illustrates these 49 good job By Brandon Sheffield [ career ] ideas in Microsoft's Rx. By Gary Dahl Q&A with Ken Taya, Who Went Where, and New Studios 30 THE Iron FIST 50 educated PLay By Tom Curtis [E ducation ] Tekken is a venerable 3D fighting game series, dating back to 1994. A Flipping good Time As the Tekken team looks to complete its mashup with the sTreeT 56 ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT By Matthew Wasteland [HUMOR] FighTer series, we spoke with game director Katsuhiro Harada about Sandwich Pitches the first game's origins. By Brandon Sheffield 1 game developer | xxxxx xxxx www.gdmag.Com 1 GAME PLAN // BRANDON SHEFFIELD game de v eloper maga z ine w w w. gdmag . c om UBM LLC. InteractIve hIstory 303 Second Street, Suite 900, South Tower San Francisco, CA 94107 On the impOrtance Of preserving games’ rich past t: 415.947.6000 f: 415.947.6090 sUBSCRIptION SERVICES I thInk hIstory Is Important. as created polygon vector models of And just looking at these things from FOR InFORMATION, ORDer QUESTIONS, anD George Santayana famously wrote the chip’s physical components. afar is not very engaging. To that end, aDDRESS CHANGES in The Life of Reason, “Those who This allows chip-level accuracy in they really need what amounts to a t: 800.250.2429 f: 847.763.9606 cannot remember the past are emulation, and at the very least community manager. Preservation e: [email protected] condemned to repeat it.” If you look enables the chip to be recreated is only half the battle. What good is a FOR digItal sUBscrIptIon InFormatIon around you, it’s clear that we are if necessary. And this is fantastic, gorgeous collection that nobody can www.gdmag.com/digital actually doing a lot of repeating but this is just one chip! The group play with? eDITORIal nowadays. As the game industry is working to save more chips, PublIsher prepares for 3D in the browsers, and especially the rarer ones, but they Face the masses Simon Carless l [email protected] we watch the increase in quality can only do so much. Museums can often be static and eDITOR-In-chIeF of games on smartphones, and sterile, but games are vibrant and Brandon Sheffield l [email protected] even as one looks at the increasing interactive. There needs to be some proDUctIon Editor the lIvIng canvas Jade Kraus l [email protected] complexity of indie games, we can As the preservation movement picks care put into their presentation. In ART DIRECTOR also see a lot of people making up speed, so too does the desire the case of game collections, rare Joseph Mitch l [email protected] mistakes that were solved during to show off these collections, or at artifacts can be presented with DesIgner the 32 bit console era, or earlier. least make them available to the videos, screenshots, and most Jessica Chan contributIng WrIters While we can’t stop everyone right people. This, of course, leads to importantly context. There’s no easy Tom Curtis from re-learning all these lessons— museums. One of the largest is the solution that would allow people to Jesse Harlin there are tons of pitfalls in game International Center for the History play them, but putting a game in Mathew Kumar David Hellman development, after all—helping of Electronic Games (ICHEG) at the the context of its time period (i.e. Peter Drescher more people to understand Strong Museum of Play, which has a it influenced this, popularized this Steve Theodore Kim Pallister the origins of games and game huge library of games, but also has graphical technique, broke this Soren Johnson development is a worthwhile a trove of documents and artifacts unspoken rule) would help preserve Matthew Wasteland endeavor. Postmortems go a long from persons like Ralph Baer, Dani its legacy, or perhaps introduce it to aDvISORY BoarD Hal Barwood Designer-at-Large way, but aside from those on Bunten Berry, Don Daglow, Ken and those who didn’t know the game in Mick West independent Game Developer and Gamasutra, Roberta Williams, and Will Wright. the first place. Brad Bulkley microsoft These documents are priceless Clinton Keith independent not that many are public. There In the case of documentation, it Brenda Brathwaite Lolapps are technical manuals and theory windows into the thought processes can be scanned and retyped, but to Bijan Forutanpour sony Online entertainment books, but when you come down of the time, and it’s fantastic that really make it resonate with people, Mark DeLoura thQ Carey Chico independent to it, most of the game industry’s they’re being preserved. the important elements need to be Mike Acton insomniac collective knowledge is stored up Then there’s the Video Game highlighted. The Nth assembly code in the thoughts and discussions of History Museum, put together by a revision is likely going to be less aDVERTIsING SALES gloBal sales director those who lived it. few collectors from the DigitalPress exciting than a breakthrough design Aaron Murawski e: [email protected] Ever since my first GDC I have forums. Their collection includes revelation or critical algorithm. Key t: 415.947.6227 been privy to panels, discussions, full runs for multiple consoles, creator interviews would be an added media accoUnt manager John Malik Watson e: [email protected] and proposals suggesting how to collections that truly could not exist bonus to any of these scenarios. t: 415.947.6224 preserve games. Should we keep again without the help of extreme Without context, these gloBal accoUnt manager, recrUItment the physical media? Do we try to investments. There are several collections are just anonymous Gina Gross e: [email protected] find all the source code? Should we other minor museums cropping piles of stuff. We don’t have scads t: 415.947.6241 gloBal accoUnt manager, eDUcatIon emulate everything? What do we up here and there, and even the of critics and curators out there to Rafael Vallin e: [email protected] do for game consoles that no longer Smithsonian has an upcoming illuminate why such and such a t: 415.947.6223 exist in the world, or of which there exhibition on the art of video games. work is important, like we have in the aDVERTIsING proDUctION are very few? How do we present These collections are all laudable, art world. So in order to popularize proDUctION MANAGER this content? There are more but once they're established, a new and continue the momentum of the Pete C. Scibilia e: [email protected] questions than answers, to be sure. problem emerges. How do people preservation, these organizations t: 516-562-5134 Many preservation efforts are get to see this stuff? The ICHEG is need spokespersons; arbiters of reprInts happening on the hobbyist level, off in Rochester, NY, and the Video quality and content for the rest of Wright'S media scattered according to the interests Game History Museum is setting up the world. Jason Pampell e: [email protected] of the person undertaking them. in Silicon Valley, which is convenient If that person does their t: 877-652-5295 The folks at www.visual6502.org for Californians, but not rest of the job well, more collections will aUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT are a great example. They’ve taken world. And even if these objects are be donated, there will be more tyson assocIates Elaine Tyson the venerable 6502 chip, which was on display, how do people interact awareness of preservation efforts e: [email protected] used in the Apple IIe, the Atari 2600, with them? You don’t want someone in general, and more people will be List rental Merit Direct LLC t: 914.368.1000 the Commodore 64, and many touching that sealed copy of Stadium able to experience our deep and others, and burned down each layer EvEntS for NES (one recently sold for important history.