You know, I haven't been mentioning Fall From Heaven on my Game of the Year lists but I probably should. (Not that I have an official list, but it come up in conversation. Our boss passed the time waiting for a meeting asking everyone theirs.)
It's a Civilization 4 mod in the style of Master of Magic (the best game ever). Spells and magic and orcs and elves and good and evil. But it really goes deeper than I'd expect for a mod. Every civ has radically different gameplay, built from familiar Civ concepts. The tech tree is slow and flat, which encourages you to really specialize your tech direction. And there are whole systems for heroes, spells, summoning, animal capture, and so on. And that's not even mentioning the Armaggedon Counter. It's better than most commercial games.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=190
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171398
There's a new version coming out this week which promises to continue the trend of quality. And also promises to make my wife quite angry. She already refers to Civilization as "that other woman".
Friday, December 14, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Best Practices for the Worst Games
Concept: Practical advice for real design situations. No ivory tower. No "if schedule allows". How do you make the best game possible when the situation isn't the best? For now, I'm mostly thinking from an inexperienced Lead Designer position, but let's see where the idea takes me.
1. Stop Waiting for Better People. I've seen many new leads beg to have only the best people working with them, both in their department and in others. It ain't gonna happen. As my six year old learned in day care "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit." There's nothing wrong with asking for greatness, but don't base your plans on it. Learn the abilities and weaknesses of the people you do have. Get them the training they need to become better. Motivate them to actually try. Scale you plans around what they can and can't do.
2. Cut Early and Cut Often. Start the project off with a brainstorm phase, where any idea is accepted and encouraged. Very soon after that, cut off 'pie in the sky' dreaming, and cut it off hard. Design down to the bone. If a feature is not absolutely necessary to make the game work, cut it as quickly as possible. If a feature would make the game better but is costly, cut it. If you know something would work, but the Lead Programmer doesn't think it's even possible, argue with him for a couple hours. Then cut it if he doesn't see the light. And when you cut, cut. None of this "we'll add it back in later" or "this is a 'maybe' feature" stuff. Don't kid yourself. It's gone and it's never coming back.
...more of these in the future. Hopefully enough to turn it into a coherent set of guidelines rather than just a series of tidbits.
1. Stop Waiting for Better People. I've seen many new leads beg to have only the best people working with them, both in their department and in others. It ain't gonna happen. As my six year old learned in day care "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit." There's nothing wrong with asking for greatness, but don't base your plans on it. Learn the abilities and weaknesses of the people you do have. Get them the training they need to become better. Motivate them to actually try. Scale you plans around what they can and can't do.
2. Cut Early and Cut Often. Start the project off with a brainstorm phase, where any idea is accepted and encouraged. Very soon after that, cut off 'pie in the sky' dreaming, and cut it off hard. Design down to the bone. If a feature is not absolutely necessary to make the game work, cut it as quickly as possible. If a feature would make the game better but is costly, cut it. If you know something would work, but the Lead Programmer doesn't think it's even possible, argue with him for a couple hours. Then cut it if he doesn't see the light. And when you cut, cut. None of this "we'll add it back in later" or "this is a 'maybe' feature" stuff. Don't kid yourself. It's gone and it's never coming back.
...more of these in the future. Hopefully enough to turn it into a coherent set of guidelines rather than just a series of tidbits.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Game Thinking
Hi. This blog is my place to discuss what's happening in games, ludology, the games industry, and suchlike. Responses to current events in the field, reviews of games I'm playing, tips on how to be a good designer, that sort of thing. I am a Creative Manager at THQ, but this blog is not meant to represent THQ or the opinions of anyone else at THQ. You may enjoy it if you are an industry folk, a fan, or someone without lots of experience with games who might be interested to know more.
Who am I? A Creative Manager represents the publisher in terms of fun and gameplay. It's my responsibility to make sure games that outside developers create are fun. I compare it to being an editor: the outside developer does all the work, but I make sure they do it well, correct their spelling mistakes, and send them checks. Except I work with a Product Manager who does all the non-gameplay, non-quality bits. I make sure it's fun, they make sure it happens. Before this, I worked as a designer at High Voltage Software for many years, working on many games including Hunter: the Reckoning, Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, Stitch: Experiment 626, Codename: Kids Next Door, Ground Control: Dark Conspiracy, and Paperboy 64. And before that I did pen and paper games at Mayfair for a while.
Who am I? A Creative Manager represents the publisher in terms of fun and gameplay. It's my responsibility to make sure games that outside developers create are fun. I compare it to being an editor: the outside developer does all the work, but I make sure they do it well, correct their spelling mistakes, and send them checks. Except I work with a Product Manager who does all the non-gameplay, non-quality bits. I make sure it's fun, they make sure it happens. Before this, I worked as a designer at High Voltage Software for many years, working on many games including Hunter: the Reckoning, Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, Stitch: Experiment 626, Codename: Kids Next Door, Ground Control: Dark Conspiracy, and Paperboy 64. And before that I did pen and paper games at Mayfair for a while.
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