Allegory of the Game

Sorry guys, I haven’t written anything in some time as I’ve been crunching over the release of a certain high profile game.

I’m taking this opportunity to let you know that IndustryBroadcast.com has posted one of my blog posts, “Making Games that Speak for Themselves”, in audio format on their website.

IndustryBroadcast.com features various articles in audio format (which can be downloaded to your iPod, streamed on the site, etc.). So it’s quite useful if you can’t find the time to sit down and read through all those interesting articles you find on the net, or don’t want to go through the hassle of reading a bunch of unstapled printed pages on your subway ride. They cover various subjects such as game design, business, management, and more. Make sure you check it out, it’s quite worth it! I’ve added a link to the Blogroll on the right.

Thanks to Ryan Wiancko for making this possible and posting my article in this format on his site!

High levels of profitability attract investments, which leads to increased competition, which leads to a wider range of choice, which leads to a refinement of the customer’s desires, which leads to an increasingly segmented market. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve all heard it before; since the PS3 and Xbox 360 generation, our games’ color palettes have moved towards desaturated tones. I’ll try to explain why this has happened, and focus on one of the less obvious reasons.
Read the rest of this entry »

This post might be a bit blunt and it could be considered disrespectful towards gamers, but that’s not the point, so sorry in advance to those offended. It’s really sort of an observation, something I’m not entirely certain of, but that I have an hunch about. Read the rest of this entry »

This post is quite short, but after seeing the latest Heavy Rain trailer I just wanted to say something that has been on my mind since GTA IV: convincing facial expressions aren’t just about the eye movement. It’s also a lot about the eyebrows and the mouth! Our eyebrows are always moving as our eyes move, and too often I see facial expressions in video games where the eyebrows simply remain static while the character’s body is in full motion. If you’re going to make the eyes move, make the eyebrows move as well. Heck, make them move at any time, even when the character isn’t doing anything.

Same goes for the mouth, as I’m writing this my mouth as been moving, I swallowed some saliva, I rubbed my tongue against my palate cause I’ve had this cheese after taste in my mouth since I ate some earlier, I yawned, and I made some random expressions I’m not even aware of.

And take a clue from Naughty Dog’s Uncharted while you’re at it!

We’ve made a lot of progress in the graphics department of our games over the years. Shaders are more complex, textures are of higher resolution, lighting solutions are unifying, characters and environments are getting more detailed, and world size is increasing. But graphics are a driving force; they are cause rather than effect. Strip a game of all of its interactive components and the graphical quality would remain intact, you would simply end up with a movie instead of a game. This lack of direct interdependence with the rest of the game is what has allowed us to push graphics so far without hitting a major wall. It’s the interdependent aspects that aren’t evolving as easily, because interdependencies implies shared problems. Read the rest of this entry »

If you look at certain well known animated TV series or animated movies in the West, such as The Flintstones, The Jetsons, The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, etc., you’ll notice that all of them have families as their main casts. Japanese anime such as Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, Gundam and Pokemon on the other hand are quite the opposite; families are usually non-existent or at least poorly represented. This difference can be easily glossed over by a young audience, but it’s a good example of a lack of subject familiarity for Western audiences that can often become an obstacle when it comes to enjoying a movie, a TV series, or a video game. Read the rest of this entry »

Video games tend to be rather cryptic to those who have never played them. Numerous icons, gauges, numbers and text are displayed all over the screen, abstract sounds are aplenty, and somehow the player is supposed to carry out seemingly complex tasks with a strange looking input device. For some, video games are indecipherable. This becomes a wall to immersion and hence to experiencing entertainment. Read the rest of this entry »

2D games are by their very nature, in this current generation of consoles, developed on lower budgets due to their relative technical simplicity. This leads developers to make games that rely less on massive commercial success, giving them more margin when it comes to creativity.

The 2d medium itself starts as a blank canvas, whereas in 3D a basic foundation must exist to some extent which must then be modified or built upon significantly to separate it completely from another 3D title which was created upon similar if not identical foundations. Read the rest of this entry »