Archive for the ‘Misc’ Category
Meaning Through Game Design
Friday, July 18th, 2014
A few weeks ago I was listening to a radio show on CBC called Rewind, in which clips from archived CBC interviews and shows are played back. They often replay sections of interviews with a Canadian personality taken from interviews that span years or decades. This particular episode was about a well-known Canadian author, Margaret Atwood.
What caught my attention was the first clip they played; an interview between Bill McNeil and Margaret Atwood from 1968, when Atwood was 29 years old. She had recently published a book of poetry, and McNeil was asking her to explain what it was about. I’ve transcribed Atwood’s comments from the episode here:
McNeil asks Atwood if she feels she can say what she wants to say better in poetry than in any other form.
“No, no no no. That’s thinking of poetry as a translation from prose, as though one were thinking in prose and then translating it into poetry as a form of expression, whereas one actually thinks in poetry. It’s not that I have a message in prose and then translate it into poetry, at all,” replies Atwood.
He asks her, “What is it then that you’re saying in your poetry?”
“Because I don’t think of my poetry as a translation from prose, I don’t think of it as being able to be translated into prose, so I can’t give you a neat little précis.”
He ask, “Well then, what is poetry for you?”
“It’s a form of thought, not a form of expression, because a form of expression means that you have something separate from what is being expressed.”
He says, “but you are saying something in your poetry.”
“Yes, I’m saying something, but you can’t separate what I’m saying from the actual form in which it’s said. Do you ask a painter, ‘what is this painting saying?’ Do you?”
(You can listen to the full episode here: CBC Radio: Rewind – Margaret Atwood)
I was so struck by what Atwood had said that I turned off the radio immediately and sat, thinking about it further. She was right, of course, that certain things can only be said via certain media. Through her poetry, Atwood communicates with the reader in a way that isn’t possible through any other medium.
I started thinking about other artistic media. Try describing to someone what a piece of music is about in a way that makes them feel the same things as if they’d listened to it. Can you make someone understand the texture, tastes, and smells of an amazing meal you had? The best films communicate with the viewer in a way that isn’t possible in a book, or painting, because they communicate best through the medium of film. The best books communicate best through the medium of the novel. This is why great books often make mediocre movies, because part of the art gets lost in translation to a medium that isn’t ideally suited for that particular message.
If all that is true, and games are an artistic medium, then that means that the best games will communicate something that can only be expressed through the medium of games. But what is that? What kinds of thought can only be communicated through games, or can best be communicated through games?
In 2011, game designer Clint Hocking gave an amazing talk at GDC about game dynamics and “how games mean”.
In the talk, Hocking discusses how film generates meaning through the edit. He talks about a film in which a film maker cut together a shot of a man’s face, followed by a bowl of soup, followed by the same shot of the man, followed by a shot of a dead person, etc. When people watched the film, they attributed different emotions to the man, first that he looked hungry when looking at the soup, then sad when looking at the dead person, etc. Hocking argues that because the shot of the man is the same every time, it is the placement of the shots in time (i.e. the edit) that generates meaning.
(You can watch the full talk on the GDC Vault for free: GDC Vault: Clint Hocking – Dynamics: The State of the Art)
If film creates meaning through the edit, how do games create meaning? Hocking argues that games create meaning through dynamics. To talk about dynamics, we need to first talk about the MDA framework: MDA Framework (PDF)
MDA stands for “Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics.” It is a framework created by Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc, and Robert Zubek to describe a formal approach for understanding games. Briefly (including some quotes and examples from the MDA paper):
Mechanics can be thought of as the “rules” of the game. These are the components that make up a game “at the level of data representation and algorithms.” In poker, the mechanics include: shuffling the deck, dealing, betting, raising, hand ranking, etc.
Dynamics are the kinds of player behaviours that result from the mechanics as the game is played. In poker, the mechanics create dynamics like bluffing, or intimidation.
Aesthetics can be thought of as describing “the desirable emotional responses evoked in the player, when she interacts with the game system.” So in the MDA framework, aesthetics are not talking about the visual look of the game, but rather the emotional result of playing the game. In poker, the dynamics create aesthetics like challenge, fellowship, or expression.
If you start reading about game design, you will find a lot of books written on mechanics, and some on aesthetics, but writing on dynamics is much harder to find. Dynamics in games often appear as feedback loops, which can be hard to describe. But as game designers, our central job is to create mechanics that generate the dynamics that lead to the kind of aesthetic experience we want the player to have.
So, back to Clint Hocking’s talk. He argues that is it through dynamics that games create meaning. Thinking about what Atwood said about poetry, I’m inclined to agree. Dynamics aren’t present in other art forms because other art forms don’t let the viewer/reader interact with them the same way games do. Through interacting with mechanics, the player experiences dynamics, and Hocking argues that those dynamics are what create meaning in games.
If we accept Hocking’s statement, then my question becomes: what do we want to say with games that can only be or can best be communicated with dynamics?
When I look at some of my favourite games, this is what they do well; they create meaning in ways that would not be possible in other media. Proteus, one of my favourite games, works because what it evokes could not be experienced better in another medium. I think this is why I find it so difficult to explain to other people why I love that game so much. I can tell you about my childhood memories of exploring forests, and fields, and ponds. I can tell you about the beautiful island I explored in Proteus where I sat and watched the stars move overhead. I can tell you about the sounds I heard while walking through a forest in Proteus’s winter landscape. But it doesn’t capture it. You need to play it yourself to experience the meaning in it.
The thing is, I don’t know what this means for me yet; what this means for the games I make. I’m more and more interested in exploring games that best convey meaning through the medium of games, but I yet don’t know how that will manifest itself in my work. This is a process. I’m still learning. I’m still working it out.
Owen
Creativity and Self-Doubt
Wednesday, October 2nd, 2013
There have been some studies recently that look at the way social networks affect our perception of ourselves in relation to others. Some of the studies have talked about how since we tend to share only the best of ourselves online, it can lead us to feel bad about our own lives, as they seem so much less perfect than the lives of those around us.
I’ve noticed that this can happen when we talk about our work as creative individuals. We like to talk about our successes, but we leave out all the hard work and failure that came before the good parts. Maybe we don’t like to think about the difficult parts. Maybe we’re afraid of appearing weak. Maybe we’re afraid of looking like we don’t know what we’re doing.
Five years ago, when I was new to the indie game development scene, I was working on my first game, Dapple. I had been working on it for a couple of months, and what had started with great ideas and enthusiasm had turned to a place where I was starting to doubt every decision I was making about the game design. Should I match three colours or four? Does the game need power ups, or will it work better without? Should I let the player choose their colour each turn, or should I pick one of the available colours at random for them? I was getting stuck inside my own head, convincing myself that every decision I was making was bound to be wrong.
I decided to reach out to a game designer I respected and ask for advice. I sent an email explaining who I was and my situation, and asked for advice on how to get through periods of self-doubt. How do you make a decision when you feel like all your ideas are wrong, I asked. The response I got amounted to: “Sorry, this doesn’t happen to me. Can’t really help you out.” As you might imagine, this was pretty crushing. Now I felt even more incompetent and I started to feel like “real” game designers must not ever doubt themselves. What was wrong with me that I doubted my own abilities?
But the longer I worked, and the more game designers and developers I’ve met, the more I’ve come to realize that either this individual was, by far, the exception, or wasn’t being honest with me. I have shared my feelings of self-doubt with many other designers since then, and invariably they have similar stories. We all doubt ourselves and our decisions from time to time. We go through periods where we think our work is terrible and will never be good. We become convinced at times that no one will like our game.
What I’ve learned is that, for me, it’s just part of the process of making a game. Making a game is about making a huge number of decisions, and it’s only natural to feel at times like I’m making the wrong ones. And hell, sometimes I am going to make the wrong decisions. But that’s ok. The important thing is to take the information I have available and make a decision.
An old boss I had once said to me “don’t worry about making the right decisions, worry about making the decisions right.” At the time, I didn’t really understand what he was saying, but I do now. Sometimes you just need to make a decision and move on, or you can become paralyzed by it. If you realize later that the decision was wrong and makes the game worse, you can go back and fix it. But don’t let yourself get into a situation where you refuse to make decisions for fear of being wrong.
I wanted to write this in case any new game designers happen to be following me on twitter or read this blog. I didn’t want someone working on their first game to feel like the doubt they’re experiencing is unique to them. I wanted to say to you that self-doubt is common. It’s ok if you experience it, because everybody does. What’s important is that you find ways to work through it and move on.
Over the last few years I’ve found that a few things can really help me when I get stuck on a problem:
- take a walk outside, preferably in nature
- exercise
- visit an art gallery and remind yourself of the beauty we are capable of creating
- go to a movie and see something great
- go to a movie and see something terrible
- work on something unrelated for a few hours, or a day or two (but be careful not to jump indefinitely from project to project when things get hard, because things always get hard at some point)
- do a game jam
- just make a decision and start working on it. If you hate it, you can change your mind.
I hope that helps. And, if in doubt, read and re-read this quote from Ira Glass:
If you have any suggestions for what helps you get through the hard parts of development, let me know!
Owen
Thoughts on Proteus
Sunday, July 28th, 2013
I don’t often write about other games, but maybe I should. If you follow me on twitter, or talk to me about video games, chances are you’ve heard me talk a lot about Proteus over the last year or so. Proteus is a game about exploring an island. Proteus doesn’t have most of the goals or objectives many players expect from games, but I find it to be a wonderful game to play. It’s a game I come back to over and over, because it reminds me of exploring the country as a child. I talked about this in more detail in the Ignite Guelph talk I gave on art and games.
A few months ago I sat down to write down some thoughts on Proteus. What came out was not what I expected. It was much more personal that I thought it would be, even though there’s really nothing expressly personal in the piece. But I felt strange about sharing it publicly for some reason. I guess the experiences we have as children feel special and private sometimes. But, in the end, I still feel like this piece best describes why I love Proteus so much. I decided to publish it on the blog because I feel like other players might have had similar experiences.
And so, without further ado, here are my thoughts on Proteus:
I am 12 years old. I’m at the family cottage; a formerly abandoned place on Georgian Bay that my parents have been fixing up. I spend my summers here.
It’s hot today. The grass seems to be giving off heat in the mid-day sun. The air feels thick and heavy in the humidity. Even the wind feels hot. I stand at the edge of the road looking into the field across from the cottage, wondering if the bull is in there with the cows today. I can’t see the cows from here, but they’re in there, I know it. I cross the road, climb over the old wooden fence, and drop down into the tall grass.
I look ahead to the line of trees in the distance. The buzz of cicadas rings in my ears, over and over. As one winds down, another starts up, filling the air with their perpetual song. I start pushing my way through the grass, on the look out for the cows. I walk to the creek, but it’s dry. We haven’t had rain for a while. I turn and head toward the trees at the back of the field.
A flying grasshopper bursts out of the grass in front of me and its loud buzz startles me. I stop to watch where it lands and I creep towards it. As I approach it launches again and buzzes. I chase the grasshopper through the field until it lands in a pile of rocks and disappears.
I clamber up the pile of rocks – a pile left over from when this land was first cleared – to take stock of where I am. I’ve come about half way across the field. The trees are still a ways off. I start climbing down from the rocks and, as my foot moves one, a garter snake slides out and moves through the grass. I follow it.
The snake weaves its way through the tall grass and I have a hard time keeping up. Every time I get close, it seems to get away. Finally it burrows itself in a bush. I sit down next to the bush and wait to see if it reemerges. After a few minutes I move on.
I’m nearly at the tree line now. I can see the hill the trees growing on in the shadows of the forest. I pass into the shade and immediately feel cooler out of the intense sunshine. The air smells different in here, damp, and alive. I climb up the hill, following an old cow path up the slope. I still haven’t seen the cows. Maybe they’re in the back field near the pond trying to stay cool.
I come out of the trees at the top of the hill into another field and follow the path to the pond, but the cows aren’t here either. I stop next to the pond and stand motionless, listening. The air up here is still, the wind blocked by the trees. The buzz of the cicadas continues. As I crouch very still by the pond the frogs begin to croak. I listen carefully. I can hear one nearby. I look through the cat tails in front of me and see a big green leopard frog. I reach out my hand and, just as I’m about to touch it, it dives into the water.
I stand and look around to get my bearings. The cow path weaves off up the hill. I follow along the path for a while. I reach the big pile of rocks in the back field I’ve been looking for. I clamber up the rocks to look around. I still haven’t seen the cows. Maybe they’re in the back forest, but I can’t see them from here. I turn left, climb down the rocks, and hop the fence into the neighbouring field. In the distance a group if poplars grows on a small hill, rising above everything else. I make my way towards it.
As I start up the hill, I turn around. From up here I can see back down across the fields, all the way to the water. The lake is a deep blue in the sun. White caps from the wind dot the blue expanse. Water extends to the horizon. Islands in the distance hint at new things to see and places to explore.
I circle around the hill until I find the stone foundation from a house that is long gone. I drop down into grass at the bottom. I lie down in the grass and close my eyes and listen. Here there is no wind and the cicadas’ buzz fills my ears. The sun is warm on my face. This is Proteus.
5 Years Old
Monday, July 8th, 2013
I can hardly believe it myself, but Streaming Colour is five years old today! Five years ago today I arrived in Toronto after moving back from Vancouver, sat down at my computer, and started my indie career. When I started Streaming Colour I had no idea if I’d survive for five years. It was a gamble. I had a left a good job as a senior programmer in the console games industry and I was taking a big risk. My goal was to build the business to the point where I was making a livable income after five years. Not be rich, just making enough to keep doing what I wanted to do.
It has been a very long and very short five years filled with lows and highs, and everything in between. Being an independent game developer definitely hasn’t been easy. In fact, it has been a huge struggle at times. But it has also been incredibly rewarding on a personal, professional, and creative level. There are few things as creatively rewarding as taking an idea in your head and turning it into something that people can experience for themselves.
Over the past five years I have taken on some really interesting contract work. I’ve spoken at conferences in Guelph, Toronto, and San Jose. I wrote a chapter in a book on iPhone development. I moved to Guelph, Ontario with my amazing wife, and we’ve had two incredible children. Through it all, I somehow managed to release seven games/apps. I’m not releasing any numbers today, but these are those games ranked from most revenue to least, for those curious:
- Finger Tied (Oct, 2012)
- Baby’s Musical Hands (July, 2011)
- Dapple (Feb, 2009)
- LandFormer (June, 2010)
- Monkeys in Space (Nov, 2009)
- Dirty Diapers (Dec, 2010)
- Finger Tied Jr. (May, 2013)
Update: A couple of people on twitter were curious about relative revenue. Here’s a graph showing each game/app as a percentage of total revenue earned on the App Store:
I have learned some hard and important lessons about developing games on my own. I’ve learned some very hard lessons about marketing and PR. I feel like I’m getting better every day at what I do, and I intend to keep learning and improving with every game.
After releasing Finger Tied last fall, one thing I realized was that I really missed working with other people. Working on one’s own gives you a lot of creative freedom and choice, but it’s also really difficult to see the big picture at times. Late last year, Matt Rix and I teamed up and started prototyping some game ideas. He and I had worked together a couple of times at TOJam in Toronto, and we decided we’d see if we could make a game together. Earlier this spring we founded a new company called Milkbag Games and we’re currently hard at work on our first game: Snow Siege. It has been a fantastic experience working with Matt so far and I think Snow Siege is going to be a really great game.
Finally, I wanted to extend a big thank you to everyone who has supported me and Streaming Colour over the last five years. If you bought my games, offered encouragement, talked with me about game design at GDC or 360iDev, or just sent a friendly message of twitter, thank you! Nobody can do this alone, not even those of us who work alone. I wouldn’t still be doing this if not for all of you. Here’s to the next five years!
Owen
Finger Tied: A History
Thursday, December 13th, 2012
Yesterday I released a big update to Finger Tied (get it on the App Store) which enables the sharing of levels in the game. You can now share the levels you create, and download levels created by other players. I think it’s pretty cool, and I hope the players do too.
As I was working on the update, I started thinking back on the process of creating the game from start to finish. I like it when other people talk, in detail, about the process of creating their games, so I thought I’d do something to share the process of making Finger Tied. I wished I’d kept a diary or journal about the development of the game, but then I realized that I had the next best thing: my commit logs from my Git repo for the game. Every time I check in code or art, I add comments about what I accomplished.
With that in mind, I exported the logs and wrote a little PHP script to generate HTML code of all the commit comments. I’ve also gone back through my screenshots and pulled some that are relevant to given dates. I haven’t edited any of this, so you’ll see references to features that don’t appear in the finished game, because I decided to cut them.
The first commit comments are from Guelph Game Jam 3, in April, where I first prototyped the game. It was a game about planting flowers, called Trillium Fillium. From there you can see it involve into something more abstract and into the final game.
This post is long. I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t read it. I hope one or two of you find it interesting. 😉
Finger Tied: From Start to v1.1
Wed Apr 11
Sun Apr 15
Original Prototype created for Guelph Game Jam 3 (Apr 15, 2012).
Fri Apr 27
Mon Apr 30
Tue May 1
Wed May 2
Fri May 4
Sat May 5
Mon May 7
Tue May 8
Wed May 9
Sun May 27
Wed May 30
Fri Jun 1
Mon Jun 4
The style of the game is starting to come together.
Tue Jun 5
Wed Jun 6
Thu Jun 7
Fri Jun 8
Main Menu design is largely what shipped, though obviously with different colours.
Tue Jun 12
New colour palette is in the game.
Wed Jun 13
Fri Jun 15
Tue Jun 19
Wed Jun 20
Thu Jun 21
Fri Jun 22
Wed Jul 4
Mon Jul 16
Tue Jul 17
Wed Jul 18
Fri Jul 20
Mon Jul 23
Post Game screen. It’s becoming clear that lanscape orientation is becoming problematic.
Tue Jul 24
Wed Jul 25
Fri Jul 27
Game has been reworked to render in portrait orientation, making everything better.
Mon Jul 30
Tue Jul 31
Wed Aug 1
Fri Aug 31
Tue Sep 4
Thu Sep 6
Fri Sep 7
Mon Sep 10
Tue Sep 11
Final layout of the Level Select menus.
Wed Sep 12
Thu Sep 13
Fri Sep 14
Mon Sep 17
Tue Sep 18
Fri Sep 21
Sat Sep 22
Mon Sep 24
Tue Sep 25
Evolution of the icon design.
Fri Sep 28
Sat Sep 29
Sun Sep 30
Tue Oct 9
Fri Oct 19
Wed Oct 24
Fri Oct 26
Mon Oct 29
Tue Oct 30
Wed Oct 31
Fri Nov 2
Tue Nov 6
Fri Nov 9
Tue Nov 20
Mon Nov 26
Wed Nov 28
Fri Nov 30
Sat Dec 1
Sun Dec 2
Mon Dec 3
Tue Dec 4
Wed Dec 5
Fri Dec 7
Posted in Art, Business, Design, Finger Tied, ipad, Marketing, Misc, postmortem, Project Management, Technical | Comments Off on Finger Tied: A History