JANUARY 2013 VOLUME 20 NUMBER 01 www.unrealengine.com much all of the engine’s features at one point experience, Ninja Theory built new technology Ninja Theory and Capcom or another during the game’s development. on top of UE3 to customize lighting and Reboot Devil May Cry with “One really useful aspect for us was shadowing and to create faster and more Unreal Matinee, as this allowed us to easily accurate cloth simulations and faster particle Unreal Engine 3 set up complex cutscenes and really get systems. They also worked with Epic Games into the minutiae of achieving the fi lmic and other UE3 teams on the Unreal Developer Dante is getting a makeover. The look that we’re after,” said Matthews. “On Network (UDN) throughout the process. mercenary demon hunter is back in a related front, the material system gives “UDN is great for quickly looking up action in DmC Devil May Cry, a highly us complete control over the look and feel documentation, but it’s the community anticipated reboot of the franchise. of every surface – early on we made the forums that are invaluable,” said Matthews. By working closely with Capcom, decision to allow our artists to create their “All UE3 licensed developers have developer Ninja Theory stripped Dante to own materials and this really helped us access to the forums so there’s a lot of the bare essentials to incorporate the story achieve the distinct atmosphere of the game.” experience to draw upon, which always of his origin into this new action adventure. Ninja Theory has been at the forefront helps when there is a tricky issue to solve.” The UK studio utilized Unreal Engine 3 of performance capture, having worked “Having an engine capable of cross- (UE3) to bring this multi-world story to life. with actor and director Andy Serkis on platform development from the start provides Previously, Ninja Theory utilized Heavenly Sword and Enslaved. In DmC, a huge advantage,” said Matthews. “The UE3 technology to ship Namco Bandai’s Dante and the other characters are being platform fl exibility that UE3 demonstrates Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. brought to life using the studio’s latest was a key factor in allowing us to concentrate “We’ve worked with the Unreal Engine for performance capture technology, which on the game itself. Rather than having to a long time now, and we found that the engine has excelled at pushing things forward designate one console as a lead platform would enable us to achieve what we wanted over its past story-driven action games. we were able to treat them as equals. There with DmC, whilst at the same time allowing us “We’ve developed an in-house facial are, of course, systems that work differently to get involved in making the game straight motion capture solver that we used for all of between platforms but, thanks to the engine, away,” said Dominic Matthews of Ninja Theory. the cinematic scenes in DmC Devil May Cry,” these are the exception rather than the rule.” “A new engine would have meant at least six said Matthews. “This allows us to deliver top By allowing UE3 to do a lot of the heavy months’ worth of learning before we could quality results without having to pay external lifting, Ninja Theory was able to focus its get started with the actual development.” companies to wrangle content for us.” efforts on creating a fresh approach to a Matthews continued, “We’ve learned what Performance capture plays an important beloved video game protagonist. DmC pushes we can do with the engine and how we can role in bringing a Hollywood cinematic feeling to the gameplay forward by giving players more modify it to our needs. Everything that we the game. Early on, Capcom told Ninja Theory choices, while offering a cinematic experience learned during Enslaved development we’ve to think of Dante and DmC as a contemporary that’s sure to attract a wide audience. been able to take into our work on DmC.” movie, as one goal is to introduce a Alex Jones, producer at Capcom, said fresh take on Devil May Cry to a wider Thanks to Ninja Theory for speaking with freelance reporter John Gaudiosi for this story. UE3 allowed the team to create larger open audience, while at the same time preserving areas than they’d done before, moving and building on the DNA of the series. UPCOMING EPIC ATTENDED EVENTS away from corridors, and gave them more “This idea of creating a Dante as if he were D.I.C.E Summit fl exibility in opening up the gameplay. in a modern day movie has guided us through Las Vegas, NV “Unreal Engine scripting is very development,” said Matthews. “We’re very February 5-8, 2013 fl exible, so some of our game events are happy with where we’ve ended up and I hope Cloud Gaming Europe a little more involved than in previous that those new to the series and existing Devil London, UK Devil May Cry games,” said Jones. May Cry fans will fi nd a lot of fun in the game.” February 21-22, 2013 Matthews said Ninja Theory used pretty In order to improve the overall game Please email [email protected] for appointments © 2012, Epic Games, Inc. Epic, Epic Games, Unreal, Unreal Developer Network, UDN, Unreal Matinee, Unreal Engine, and UE3 are trademarks or registered trademarks of Epic Games, Inc. in the United States of America and elsewhere. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. All rights reserved. toc 001 CONTENTS_January 2013 VOLUME 20 NUMBER 01 Postmortem 030 PaPo & Yo How would you make a game about growing up with an alcoholic parent? Find out how Minority Media made it work in this Papo & Yo postmortem. By Deborah Chantson and Julien Barnoin Features 008 Front Line awards The Game Developer readers have spoken: Find out which dev tools were the best in the business for 2012. By Staff 018 Bring Your tooLs to Browsers The web isn’t going anywhere. Insomniac Games senior engine programmer Chris Edwards explains how—and why—they migrated their dev tools to the web. By Chris Edwards 025 remixing CLassiCs: interview with masaYa matsuura Game Developer caught up with PaRappa creator Masaya Matsuura to chat about game developer magazine the Japanese game industry, tech, and the new indie generation. By Patrick Miller 037 PLaYers make the ruLes A game is only as good as your players will let it be. Don’t let your best-laid game designs be ruined by contagious “bad” player behavior. By Nils Pihl Departments 002 game Plan [editorial] 004 heads up display [news] 006 educated Play [education] 007 good Job [Career] 016 gdC news [news] 040 toolbox [review] 043 inner Product [Programming] 046 Pixel Pusher [art] 049 design of the times [design] 052 aural Fixation [sound] 054 the Business [Business] 055 insert Credit [editorial] game developer magazine 064 arrested development [humor] game developer magazine 001 GAME DEVELOPER 002 gp MAGAZINE GAME PLAN_January 2013 WWW.GDMAG.COM UBM LLC. 303 Second Street, Suite 900, South Tower San Francisco, CA 94107 t: 415.947.6000 f: 415.947.6090 SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES FOR INFORMATION, ORDER QUESTIONS, AND ADDRESS CHANGES t: 800.250.2429 f: 847.763.9606 [email protected] Our New Year’s Resolutions www.gdmag.com/contactus EDITORIAL GAME DEVELOPER’S SELF-IMPROVEMENT GOALS FOR 2013 PUBLISHER Simon Carless - [email protected] Pearl Verzosa - [email protected] Every year I make a few New Year’s Resolutions; last year I resolved to wake up by 8 a.m. EDITOR every day and start fl ossing my teeth. (Pearl, our publisher, will be more than happy to Patrick Miller - [email protected] EDITOR EMERITUS tell you how the fi rst one worked out.) But I’m going to walk you through a few planned Brandon Sheffield - [email protected] improvements we’re making to Game Developer in 2013, in the hope that you, dear MANAGER, PRODUCTION readers, will keep me a bit more accountable than my dentist does. Dan Mallory - [email protected] ART DIRECTOR Joseph Mitch - [email protected] NEW LOOK, SAME BOOK First: Welcome to read the articles on a smartphone or other CONTRIBUTING WRITERS the new Game Developer magazine! smaller-than-a-tablet device. Chris Edwards, Deborah Chantson, Noel You’ve already noticed the fi rst big step And yes, I say “smartphone or other device” Llopis, Jon Beilin, Steve Theodore, Damion Schubert, Damian Kastbauer, David Edery, we’ve taken: Game Developer has a new look! instead of “iPhone” because our Android app is Alexandra Hall, Matthew Wasteland, Magnus Magazine redesigns are usually a big, time- fi nally coming along! We’re still trying to fi gure Underland consuming endeavor that takes several months out our specifi c launch plans (and, in fact, it ADVISORY BOARD of mock-ups and approvals, but we didn’t might be out by the time you read this), but rest Mick West Independent have time for that, so we just told Art Director assured that all of you who told me on Twitter Brad Bulkley Microsoft Joseph Mitch to redesign the magazine and he that you wouldn’t be resubscribing until we Clinton Keith Independent Bijan Forutanpour Sony Online Entertainment said “Okay.” were on Android can rejoin the fl ock very soon Mark DeLoura Independent We were all sad to see the ripped-from- (that means you, @SnakeEaterITA). Carey Chico Independent Thrasher grungy look go, but this new, clean Mike Acton Insomniac look should be a little bit easier on your eyes GAMADEVELOPER MAGASUTRA This year, ADVERTISING SALES when you’re digging into our latest postmortem we’re going to try to play more nicely with (especially if you’re reading on a tablet).