In the last entry we made a short overview about Game Design from the perspective of one of its fundations: problem solving. We will continue from that point.

First of all, one thing anyone could point out is that “Problem Solving” is the purpose of any design process, so the point made in the last entry is vague, ambiguous and even redundant. Actually, that’s kind of true. Even though, remember that we are making a very general overview, but more over, I specifically choose a concrete example to write about: Caracas Game Jam 2012 (CGJ); any vaguity, ambiguity or redundancy could (and should, when needed) be ignored because there is a case study at hand.

Cleared that, let’s remember what our main premise is:

See, Game Design is, fundamentally, about two things: problem solving and teaching stuff.

We stated the following about the Problem Solving half of game design:

Game design is about problem solving. The first problem is stablished by the conditions in which the gameplay solution has to be develop, and the other one is how to deliver that solution to the player.

But, what is exactly a gameplay solution of the initial conditions of development? If you think about it, your gameplay solution is a procedure that takes as inputs those initial conditions and give us another set of problems, the ones that represent the challenge players have to face. At this point it’s quite obviuos a concrete difference between a game design process and any other design process: you solution is actually a number of steps thought to create even more problems.

(So, any vaguity, ambiguity or redundacy should be overcome by now).

It’s beyond the scope of this post to go deeper into the details of the last paragraph, but in order to clarify even more, a gameplay solution is a pattern stated by the game designer as a response of the initial conditions of development. That pattern (or set of) is used as a general template to create problems included in the final implementation of the game (whether is a analogical or digital, implementation here refers to the creation of the actual rules and assets of the game and in the digital case it includes the code).

On the other hand, that pattern requires a fundamental condition: that the problems created from it can be solvable, in general. A pattern can create non-solvable problems in human terms, or in most cases a set of non solvable problems can be stated from any pattern. The game design process is created to rule out any chance for those cases to actually happen.

So, there is nothing new under the sun, what I’ve done (since the last entry) is to point out some intuitive notions that aren’t that hard to see (but easy to forget).

In the case study, the pattern to be created as a gameplay solution is the result of the extreme conditions in the CGJ, when the main goal of maximizing funtime (as a general purpose). Possible solutions? gameplay mechanics based on randomness, time consumption, player competitivity to mention a few. Is now more clear why a level based game isn’t (by far) a solution: a level, in the platform sense, is a pattern (in the gameplay solution) so concrete that needs a lot of work (design, assets, balancing) in order to be created, a quite hard task to accomplish in only 48 hours. A set of more abstract patterns, as the one I’ve mentioned, is more likely to be a solution.

But, what happens next? once the pattern gave us a set of problems, what’s the following step? the next step is fulfilled by the player. And that’s where the 2º half of the design process lights out.

The important observation here is: the player is untagling this process in the opposite direction, from the actual problems to the general pattern. Players don’t even care about what initial conditions were set, the whole idea of a game is to discover the pattern that every problem in the implementation is an example of.

So, what happens if the player doesn’t discover the pattern? nothing happens, that’s what; you just wasted your time making a so called game.

From a very intuitive point of view, the result of any design process requires the final user to understand it in some way and measure, but in our case, a game the design process is not finished until the player plays the game and validates that a general pattern can be discovered from it, while taking part of the actual process of discovering.

In other words, the general pattern needs to be teach. The tools to discover that pattern need to be given to the player, in some way.

Any game teachs something, because any game is a pattern waiting to be discovered. Please, kill that mindset that tells everyone a game only teach something if it is a realistic World War II or Medieval era videogame or a thing like it.

Some games (and specifically, videogames) teach deep things, other not so much. Every single one of them teach something that requires the player to be a living part of the discovering process. The power of gaming lies in that fact.

Game design is about teaching stuff. If you are not teaching anything, then you are not game designing.

The other thing  I noticed in the CGJ (besides the level based games trend) is that every single team just dropped the idea to teach the pattern they choose as a gameplay solution, and I need to say it in the exact way I’m thinking it: that’s just fucking stupid.

They were in the edge of not making a game at all, but a thing with the potential of being a game.

The “teaching” part of the process is also a problem to be solved. A very important part, as you might recognize by now.

What happened then? teams confused level progression with teaching a pattern; they are closely related, but aren’t the same thing. I can teach a lot about a pattern even when I’m not showing anything new about it in each iteration of the game (not making progress in it); I can show (very literally) a lot of details of the patterns, by increasing difficulty for example, and not teach anything at all.

Level progression is just a way to teach a pattern, the most intuitive one I think, but not the only way (and actually, when badly putted together could be the worst way to do it).

Teams in the CGJ barely accomplished the duty of teaching something because they included some level progression in their games, but that’s it. Some teams actually refused the idea of teaching with no good reason (or reasoning) behind it. They focused in the solving problem phase of the process. There was no planification in teaching the pattern, it was teached almost by chance in many cases.

So, player, here there are some assets, some controls, you have to figure out how to use those thing. No, that’s not the way this process works. At all.

And, stay with me in this one, I’m not saying I haven’t enjoyed every single game made in the past CGJ. They were wonderful, but they can be improved in very fundamental ways, and there’s no reason I can’t criticize that. It’s my duty, as a game designer, to do so.

So, to conclude this (supposed to be) short comment on game design, I just have to repeat our premise:

See, Game Design is, fundamentally, about two things: problem solving and teaching stuff.

Keep those things in mind. Always.

More on the details of these subjects in further posts.

I noticed in the past Caracas Game Jam that a particular trend of creating level based games was the norm. That’s totally not an issue, at all, but it says a lot about people’s perspective over game design.

See, Game Design is, fundamentally, about two things: problem solving and teaching stuff.

A Game Jam is restricted to 48 hours of development, time in which you have to create a game that fullfils the expectations of fun of anyone (as a general purpose). Such a restrictive environment is set in order to serve as a start condition for gameplay solutions that maximize the time players have fun (funtime), in consequence encouraging creativity and collaboration in the making process. One way not to achieve that goal is to deliver level based games: unless a procedural way to create levels ingame is proposed, you do not have the time to include enough handmade levels in your gameplay solution. You just don’t have that time.

Of course, that’s not an issue in this case because a Game Jam is a place where you can do whatever you want, but if you (due some weird circumstances) are working for a client in the frame described above and your gameplay solution doesn’t maximize funtime then you failed. As simple as that.

And let me tell you something, those “weird circumstances” aren’t that uncommon.

This point of view can be criticized as subjective. Funtime is not necessarily a thing to maximize in a Game Jam, it can be, let’s say, player impression (based on fear or stress); collaboration and creativity aren’t the only skills that can be tested (programming expertise could be another), even the sentence “ you do not have the time to include enough handmade levels in your gameplay solution” is a matter of how the team is creating those levels. But what I want you to notice is that a general frame is offered: the one I’ve described a couple of paragraph above. That frame represents a problem, one that can be solve optimally in order to maximize funtime.

And a level based game, in that frame, is not a solution. Not an optimal one at least.

If a team makes a level based game then they didn’t solve the problem that a Game Jam offers as a general frame. That team solved another problem, one that actually can be (and probably is) even more difficult that the one at hand to begin with.

And that’s the point: game design is about problem solving. The first problem is stablished by the conditions in which the gameplay solution has to be develop, and the other one is how to deliver that solution to the player.

In our particular example a group of people solved the general problem a Game Jam offers, other group of people decided to stablish an inner problem inside the general one.

Some people solved the problem offered by the Game Jam as a general frame. Other people just didn’t solve it, they solved another problem.

As a game designer you need to realize that difference, because the first step to solve problems is to know exactly what the problem is. And if you don’t understand that subtle differences then you have a problem. A big one, by the way.

To be honest, I enjoyed the most those games that solved the general problem. I know that perhaps that’s a matter of taste (and it is, in part), but what I think is that the general problem actually represents the spirit of the Game Jam itself: an effective way to encourage creativity and collaboration, and I see no reason to change that fact.

But as said, in a Game Jam you can do whatever you want, and that’s awesome too. All games made in the past Caracas Game Jam were simply fantastic. I’m just trying to make a point on game design out of them.

Delivering the gameplay solution to the player is the second thing game design is about: teaching stuff.

I want to share a short comment on that tomorrow.

If you haven’t yet, you can check out my post about Caracas Game Jam 2012.

I won’t write too much about the event itself (I don’t want to write too much to be honest), if you are an spanish reader you can read a review here. I’ll be writing a lot about things we have done there in further posts, because what happpened that weekend was interesting in many ways.

First of all, I want to inform that the Caracas Game Jam 2012 (CGJ 2012) grew up quite a lot. And that’s a good thing. I was having a conversation yesterday with @chiguire and @justyole (founders of the event here in Caracas) and I said growing up is not (only) a matter of numbers, and this CGJ was a proof of it. Last year we had more people and more games (including a board one), this year the numbers weren’t quite different, but it was the experience as a whole. The last 3 years we had a facility specially designed for developing, this time wasn’t the case, but the desire to expand to other universities was a major goal this year so we decided to take the risks. We did it in the best way we could. But it wasn’t easy at all. We, as organizers, had to confront a million problems in order to keep the event going without much noticing by the attendees: from electric power problems to some douchebag claiming rights over some space we used those days, everything made CGJ better. Everything made us better.

See,  we as organizers were producers of 12 games completed that weekend. And I proud of it. Don’t missunderstand me, I’m not claiming any right over any game (except the one I was directly related), but if you are an old follower of this blog you know I just have to be very sincere about what I think, and that’s what I think: We helped over 40 people to transform their visions into playable and finished games. And that’s good not only for the obvious personal consequences, but for the global ones: most of those developers had never worked with such a figure as a producer (or did it just a few times), and now they have. They now know how things should work inside of a well planned game developing team. Now they know how duties have to be distributed. And that’s good. Their standards are higher, their experience is wider and their knowledge is broader.

From a logistic point of view, it was exactly like leaving home to go to college: you suddenly realize those details that make a lot different your experience when you are with your family and when not. We got that, and the next year is going to be even better.

Because, by far, this was the best GCJ: the event, the community, every single attendee grew up in a way we can’t imagine the last year.

In second place, El Potrero is not my game at all, the credits go to Osmel Briceño, René Espinoza y Hernán Ruiz. As that last link says, I was more like a game designer consultant and moral supporter. The team decided to recognize my contributions in the game by including me in it, but make no mistake: the game is not mine, I just watched out the process.

From left to right: Hernán, Osmel, me and René. Thank you guys, I really appreciate what you have done for me

This game is an old school platform game made in Autodesk Maya. Literally, you need to install (and to know how to use) Maya to play it. The reason: the team had no programmers, at least in the usual sense. Actually, the name of the team was NTP: No teníamos Programador (Something like WHNP: We Have No Programmer). Osmel and René are my coworkers in a 3D animation studio, we are part of the technical directors team, therefore their knowledge is focused in making tools inside Maya, and given that no team in the event absorbed them, the final decision was to make a game with what they know. Hernán provided the concept art and general modeling.

The workflow created by the teamt that day gave me an idea. Right now I’m working in expanding the tools inside El Potrero to give artists (maybe basic) tools to sketch their games ideas. I think it is a good way not only for sketching and prototyping, but also to make easier the switch to real game engines such as UDK or Unity whether or not the game is part of a professional or personal project (and also for the work in our animation team).

That last paragraph is a long term goal, but I’m very glad about it because is the result of, as I said, the best CGJ I ever been a part of.

I want to thank all the participants and specially to the fellow organizers of this year: @chiguire, @justyole, @vtrujill0, @lavz24 and @pctroll 

Global/Caracas Game Jam 2013 will be held between January 25-27 . We will be expecting you there.

A couple of videos related:

Global Game Jam 2012 Keynote

Caracas Game Jam 2012 Keynote (spanish)

Lástima que, al menos por ahora, son solo 40 los cupos, si fueran 100 el subtítulo sería: ¡50 paraos, 50 de pie!. En fin.

En el marco del Global Game Jam 2012, el Caracas Game Jam abrió oficialmente sus inscripciones. Las coordenadas:

Lugar: Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (UCAB), Edif. de Ingeniería.

Fecha: del 27 al 29 de enero.

Se espera comenzar a las 5 p.m. del día viernes y terminar a la misma hora el día domingo, pero la finalización de las inscripciones, verificación de datos, entrega de materiales y credenciales funcionará desde las 12 m.  Las charlas previas (tanto locales como internacionales) se llevarán a cabo 1 hora antes del inicio del evento. La hora de finalización se refiere al desarrollo de los juegos, es habitual que los equipos expongan sus creaciones luego, lo cual (en general) toma al menos  1 hora más.

Costo: Bs 80 mediante deposito bancario o transferencia electrónica.

Dicho costo incluye refrigerios, bebidas y el derecho al estacionamiento y demás instalaciones de la UCAB. Esperabamos reducir la cuota de inscripción a la modica suma de Bs 0, pero este año debimos sacrificar ese deseo debido a todos los cambios que el evento presenta con respecto a años anteriores (originalmente se hace en la USB).

Instrucciones para inscribirse:

• Completa el formulario de registro tanto del Global Game Jam como del Caracas Game Jam. Si formaste parte de algún Game Jam anterior tus datos ya están almacenados en ambas bases de datos. Te recomendamos entrar de nuevo a cada una de ellas y revisar que todos los datos sean correctos o estén actualizados.
• Escribe a ciro@caracasgamejam.com para recibir las instrucciones de pago (se hace de esta forma por motivos de seguridad). La confirmación del deposito y el resto de la información se hará por esta vía.
• Una vez confirmada la información estará completa tu inscripción. Como mencioné, la entrega de materiales y credenciales será a partir de las 12 M en la sede.

En la red: El vínculo a la página oficial está arriba (y en la imagen que encabeza el post), estamos en Twitter y Facebook también.

Compartiremos las directivas bajo las cuales funcionará el evento al inicio del mismo, pero a continuación les adelanto algunas de ellas junto a recomendaciones y aclaratorias.

En primera instancia, por si aún no lo sabes, esto es un Game Jam.

Un Game Jam es una actividad en extremo exigente, comparable a la entrega de proyectos universitarios de cualquier índole o carrera. Completar un juego en 48 hrs. es una tarea titánica y el uso del tiempo es crucial, por lo cual las horas de descanso se ven drásticamente reducidas. Recomendamos descansar la semana previa y organizar su agenda de tal manera que no tengan ningún compromiso el fin de semana. No podrán completar el juego (o siquiera intentarlo) si no están completamente enfocados en ello, tan sencillo como eso. Tomen sus precauciones.

Podremos pernoctar en el sitio (esa es la costumbre en el evento), pero es opcional. En años anteriores se ha trabajado con personas fuera de la sede vía web por diferentes motivos. No hay ningún tipo de restricción al respecto siempre y cuando sea notificado a los organizadores del evento.

Tendremos luz verde para entrar y salir del campus las veces que se desee, así como también el uso del estacionamiento en un horario aún por confirmar. Tendremos disponibles zonas de trabajo, de descanso, baños y primeros auxilios (de ser necesarios).

En cuanto a la comida, la feria de la UCAB trabaja viernes hasta bien entrada la noche y sábado hasta el mediodía; debido a la ubicación del campus es relativamente fácil salir del mismo, bien sea en vehículo propio o transporte público (autobús o Metro), para comprar comida fuera y regresar sin invertir mucho tiempo en ello (uno de nuestros principales problemas en las ediciones anteriores). El equipo organizador ayudará en la planificación de compra de comida.

Lamentablemente este año solo podremos ofrecer aulas con conexión inalámbrica a internet, pero no máquinas para trabajar. Es necesario que cuenten con una laptop (preferiblemente) o una desktop el día del evento, bien sea que su trabajo se enfoque en la programación o creación de arte. Cerciorense que cuentan con todo el software que necesiten y que funcionan correctamente. El equipo de voluntarios y organizadores les ayudará en lo que requieran para instalar sus equipos. Nos gustaría decir que sin el equipo aún pueden participar, y de hecho pueden, pero siendo sinceros es muy complicado para Uds. de esa forma.

Planifiquen con cierta antelación su estadía en la sede (sobre todo si vienen del interior del país). Si deciden pernoctar lleven consigo lo necesario para dormir relativamente cómodos: una bolsa de dormir, cojines, sábanas; Pacheco nos va acompañar como todos los años, equípense también con la ropa necesaria para disfrutar de su compañía. Si por el contrario deciden no pernoctar, es ideal que cuenten con quien los lleve y los traiga respetando las horas de entrada y salida del campus.

Les hablo de algo como esto. Caracas Game Jam 2009

Preparen con cuidado lo que necesitarán el día del evento aparte de lo mencionado arriba: cargadores para sus laptops y celulares, artículos de uso higiene y uso personal, una muda de ropa, medicación en caso de estar bajo algún tratamiento médico. Notifiquen al equipo organizador de cualquier situación que crean particular, como por ejemplo algún tratamiento que deban seguir. Lo menciono porque he vivido esa situación durante ediciones anteriores, y por ende ahora como organizador sé que contar con ese tipo de información nos será de utilidad para garatizar el disfrute de todos los participantes.

La UCAB cuenta con cajeros automáticos, pero en base a mi experiencia es muy útil tener a la mano el efectivo que crean necesario.

Este año nos han consultado nuestra política con respecto a menores de edad. Nunca hemos tenido inconvenientes con personas de 15, 16 o 17 años, pero decidimos aceptar participantes a partir de los 13 años. Sin embargo, en esos casos, la inscripción debe ser hecha y formalizada el día del evento por los padres, representantes o responsables. Tomaremos medidas extras en caso de tener participantes menores de edad, por lo que sería ideal la presencia de sus representantes durante todo el fin de semana mientras los jovenes estén en el campus (al menos durante el día). Queremos incluir gente de todas las edades, pero en el caso de menores de edad el apoyo de sus padres es crucial y no podremos hacerlo si no contamos con ellos.

Finalizadas las aclaratorias, debemos agradecer a Lorena Lozada por la nueva imagen del Game Jam y a Viviana Trujillo quien facilitó las diligencias con la universidad. Muchas gracias, su ayuda fue fundamental en la organización del evento.

Al equipo organizador conformado por Ciro Durán y Yole Quintero (fundadores), Luis Vieira, Jorge Palacios y este servidor nos complace poner a su disposición una plataforma para la creación de juegos de video y estamos muy contentos de tener la oportuidad de servirles. No nos queda más que invitarles a participar y decirles:

Nota: esta entrada pretende ser un complemento del anuncio oficial hecho por Ciro en su blog. Si desean ayudar difundiendo el evento recomendamos usar el texto contenido en este enlace como nota de prensa. De antemano gracias por cualquier colaboración.

2011 was weird. To be honest, I don’t remember having such a though times since 2004 for different reasons. This was a depressing year that beat me hard in a several number of creative ways. Seriously.

But, when looked closely, I realized I finally got my math degree, found a job (even when I was unemployed almost 11 months), watched how old friends grow up in many ways, shared more with my family (but not under the best circumstances definitely), met new awesome people and (finally, again) started my game projects with all the stuff that implies.

Photo by Yole Quintero (@justyole)

I’m working  to keep things that way in 2012.

I still think this year was a hard path to follow, I will remember it as such, but as The Rolling Stones once said…

Happy New Year people.

]]> http://lakitusdevcartridge.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/game-on-people/feed/ 0 nicolailobachevscki Sin título http://lakitusdevcartridge.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/project-dark-recon-first-post/ http://lakitusdevcartridge.wordpress.com/2011/12/27/project-dark-recon-first-post/#comments Wed, 28 Dec 2011 03:29:10 +0000 nicolailobachevscki http://lakitusdevcartridge.wordpress.com/?p=883 ]]> There is a post on deck I know  I have to finish. I’m about to do it.

Because we are game developers, not graphic designers

I finally announce the development of a game project a few friends of mine and I are working on. Project Dark Recon is a humble demo which we want to use to introduce ourselves as game developers.

The main design purpose is to create an isometric puzzle-shooter to show our development skills and attention to detail.

To be honest, the lack of resources we suffer as an indie team won’t allow us to actually create a complete game, the goal is to create a demo in which the gameplay proposed and the execution of it can be evaluated by every each of you and anyone interested.

So far you have seen updates of this game before (here and here), so let summarize a little bit about it.

Our friend Dislocacion (María Alejandra Niño) is giving us a hand with the concept art. She is a very talented artist and I love her work pretty much (I also speak in the name of the whole team). You can see more of it in her Flickr account, and follow her both in Twitter  and Tumblr. (Most of her updates are in spanish I have to say).

The concept art is now focused in defining our main character. Once we have done it, we can pivot the design of the rest of the elements based on that.

We will talk about this later on

In the programming department my friends Jorge Palacios (@pctroll) and Christian Chomiak (@cchomiak23) are doing the deeds using XNA. As mentioned, what we want to do is to integrate 2 different experiences of gameplay: a simple puzzle and a pure shooter. The first gameplay problem that have been taken care of is the puzzle; we decided to define all the elements in a 2D game completely separated of the main game (at first), and that’s exactly what Jorge is coding.

The above image describes the state of the gameplay right now.  We are developing a (literal) pattern search and recognition game: the big grid is a field presented to the player in where he (or she) have to find the color pattern shown in the little grid. By clicking on the squares on the big grid the player (depending if the job was done right) will advance throughout the game.

I want to emphazise the “literal” in the description: every game you have played is a pattern search an recognition game with a lot of layers on top of it (art, music and sounds, options, moveset etc.). In this stage of development we think that keeping as literal as possible the pattern recognition feature will make easier not only to integrate into a bigger gameplay experience, but to playtest in a very effective way.

It looks very simple at first sight, but if you look closely for a moment, the simplicity of the 2D puzzle game allows to create an almost infinite variations of it. We want to focus on a really tiny subset  and polish it as much as we can.

In further post I will explain in detail what we are doing and also, I will upload the first version of the 2D game (with the source code attached) for you to playtest and look at the code.

We have two main game influences: one directly related to what we are doing and other one set as a  design goal. The first one is called Nation Red.

And the second one is Valve’s Left 4 Dead series.

The integration we want to achieve is to put the 2D puzzle game described as the floor of the shooter experience influenced by Nation Red, so the player’s avatar have to move around to complete it. We are studying Left 4 Dead’s design in order ot seamlessly create a set of features meant to integrate both gameplays; for example,  completing each pattern search gives players ammunition, weapons and keys, the enemies could (and would) change the pattern in the floor etc. That’s why so important to polish the 2D puzzle game: if we don’t do it right the main gameplay goal won’t be feasible.

Christian is working right now on creating the basics for rendering. Of course, we don’t want to create a whole set of tools, we want to complete the game using the fewest and simplest code possible. The first example of visualization is this one.

We have to start somewhere you know

Even though, given Dislocacion’s unique drawing style, we want to capture the spirit of her pieces and portray it using a specific piece of rendering technique. We are basing our approach on Valve’s Team Fortress 2 Illustrative Rendering implementation.

Is not about copying Valve’s work (that would be easy, it’s just reading the paper above), is about understanding the fundamental workflow in order to use properly Dislocacion’s unique art style to create a game experience and mood based on that.

Yes, it is a somehow ambitious goal, but how can we show off otherwise?. (Remember, it’s just rendering, not a complete engine full of tools).

As well with gameplay, the advances of Christian’s work on rendering wil be explained in further post.

I will be creating the general game desing, doing some additional code (both in Maya and XNA), modeling, creating textures, animating what can’t be done procedurally and doing the necessary research related to gameplay and rendering.

Music, sound and narrative are being development, but they are in a very crude stage right now.

So, for now that’s all I have to share.

I have to confess I’m a little worried. Jorge and I were working to define this project for months, and we started development quite well, but I can’t rid of this general feeling that all will tear apart after this announcement. The effort Dislocacion and Christan have put in this project need to be honored and I promise to my team not to give up until we finish this demo.

(Sorry for the dramatic paragraph, but a just needed to say that).

We scheduled a year to complete at least the basics of the goals set, but we are convinced we can show a lot in less time.

Twitter updates will be shared using the hashtag #DarkReconGame.

We invite you to comment, criticize and share any though you want from now on.

Some music related to the project and this post

La organización del Caracas Game Jam 2012 sigue en marcha y comparto un par de cosas con Uds:

La sede del Caracas Game Jam 2012 será la Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (UCAB).

Como ha sido costumbre, la Universidad Simón Bolívar sería la sede principal, pero el evento cambiará de aires en la venidera edición debido a diversas razones de índole organizacional (léase: tenía que estar pendiente de un montón de cosas al respecto y el trimestre no me dejó).

Nuestra intención inicial era expandir el Game Jam y tener al menos otra sede, pero lamentablemente un  montón de circunstancias (algunas fuera de nuestro control) impidieron que nuestro objetivo se cumpliera.

¿Por qué entonces cambiar de lugar? además de lo anteriormente expuesto, hay dos motivos que inclinaron la balanza:

Pretendemos que el  Caracas Game Jam  sea precisamente eso, un evento de la ciudad de Caracas. Si bien la USB ha sido el mejor lugar posible para llevar a cabo esta iniciativa, no nos gustaría que la misma se relacione a una sola universidad. Por otra parte,  la logística de transporte y comida siempre ha sido un gran inconveniente debido a la ubicación, por lo que un lugar dentro de la ciudad nos ahorraría los problemas relacionados (problemas que no tuvimos la capacidad de resolver en esta oportunidad).

Esperamos que en la medida de nuestras posibilidades y esfuerzos podamos finalmente concretar al menos 2 sedes para la edición 2013, teniendo en mente la USB como una de ellas. No podemos sino trabajar en esa dirección como muestra de nuestro profundo agradecimiento por ser la cuna del Caracas Game Jam.

Apoyo y patrocinio.

Estamos ultimando detalles con la gente de Microsoft para que nos apoyen de distintas maneras. Tenemos varias sorpresas al respecto y (salvo por la imagen de abajo) hablaremos de ellas el día del evento.

Conseguir el apoyo de empresas, fundaciones y entes públicos ha sido un objetivo primordial en esta edición del Caracas Game Jam. Es un paso gigante y muy necesario para lograr el fortalecimiento del evento, hemos estado trabajando arduamente en ello. Si se preguntan las causas de nuestra distracción en lo que respecta a la sede, conseguir este tipo de apoyo ha sido una de ellas.

Estamos en conversaciones con otras entidades para que el ayuda sea mayor. Si están interesados en apoyar o patrocinar al Caracas Game Jam pueden escribir a ciro@caracasgamejam.com (y visitar este enlace si desean más información).

Recuerden, el Caracas Game Jam se llevará a cabo del 27 al 29 de Enero. Contamos con su presencia estudiantes, profesionales y entusiastas del desarrollo de juegos de video.

Si no sabes lo que es un Game Jam, esto te puede ayudar.

Entrevista

Como nota adicional, nuesta amiga Crismari Castillo nos entrevistó a mí y a otros desarrolladores locales de juegos de video para el semanario digital La Hormiga Analítica.

Mi apartado está totalmente dedicado al Game Jam, pero el artículo abarca mucho más de manera muy completa y precisa.

Por favor, léanlo si están interesados en el desarrollo de juegos en Venezuela.

Click en la imagen para ir a la edición del semanario

Un poco de la música que escuchaba mientras escribía.

I know, I know, I know,  I own you the second part of the last entry, but my master studies and work are holding me down with that. I will publish it soon.

Meanwhile, this is the second concept art iteration of the project I talked about first in this post. Marci is doing a wonderful job with her concept art contributions. You can check more of her work here.

A few words on the project: leveling up my skills in XNA to have a gameplay sketch of this game as soon as possible. (My laptop is being fixed right now,  add it to things that are delaying me too).

So, any comment about the concept is welcome.

]]> http://lakitusdevcartridge.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/work-in-progress-these-things-need-actual-names/feed/ 0 nicolailobachevscki escanear0006-2 http://lakitusdevcartridge.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/modern-fifa-warfare-whatever-i/ http://lakitusdevcartridge.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/modern-fifa-warfare-whatever-i/#comments Mon, 07 Nov 2011 23:46:49 +0000 nicolailobachevscki http://lakitusdevcartridge.wordpress.com/?p=750 ]]> That title totally sucks.

This entry is about this.

Compared to this.

And it will make sense. Or some.

I like football (yeah, football, soccer is not a name to me). Actually, I love football. I remember games of Italia 90 FIFA World Cup, when I was just 6 years old; and I think since then I became a fan of this sport (even when in Venezuela by that time the access to it was kinda limited). I am a huge follower of Calcio (Italian Football League) and I follow Internazionale Milano (Inter), a team from that league, since those early days in the 90′s.

So, too much for an introduction. From here I’ll assume that you are familiarized with at least the basic concepts involved in this sport. Is not that you have to understand the deep tricks or to have a very big base of games watched, but I won’t stop to clarify anything that I believe is clear to any usual football fan.

See, football, is a poorly designed game. And even though, is the most popular sport around the world, a sure-profit machine maker that even has a huge impact in some country’s economies and politics (Italy is one of the best examples, for best or for worst).

Why or how that happens? I don’t know the answer for sure, and is not the main purpose of this entry (actually, that answer can be the purpose of a whole career in game design and research). What I know for sure is that football is a poorly designed game. And that is what I’m going to talk about.

Just to cover one of the flaws (and for me, the central one), football doesn’t offer a fair distribution of scoring chances. If you see other team based sport, the chances of scoring (whatever has to be scored) are evenly distributed among the teams. Just to name a few popular sports: each team in Baseball has at least 27 opportunities to score a career; in Volleyball, besides the services rule, there is the 3 touches rule, which mandatory splits the ball possesion; in Basketball there is even a timer to control how much a team has the ball, and each team can’t go to their yard once the line in the middle is crossed (that rule has impact in ball possesion). I can go further, there are a lot of examples, but you get the idea.

Football doesn’t have such a thing. There is no rule that specifically says anything about ball possesion (BP), the intuitive way to measure scoring chances.  There are rules that specify changes of BP as a consecuence, but no rule says something like “A team has to make no more than N number of passes before shooting” or “A team has exactly N minutes before shooting” (or both).

That is not a bad thing by its own. It allows a very wide range of strategies that, when constraining BP, are impossible to define. That is one of the reason I think football is so popular: it offers a sense of freedom that other sports just simply can’t. But what make this fact a bad thing is that, in the first place, BP is not a good (or at least complete) way to measure scoring chances. Own goals are totally a thing in football, and actually, a lot of teams rely on free and corner kicks to score (Greece at the 2004 Eurocup could be the best/worst example ever), and free or corner kicks aren’t necessarily a consecuence of BP.

You need to watch out for a lot of rules to balance scoring chances, when in the aforementioned sports, ruling BP practically does the main part of the job. That might say that football is not balanced from its root. So, we started bad.

But let say that ruling BP in football is a main way to balance score chances. It looks like a fair assumption. That bring us to Firts Order Optimal Strategies (or FOO Strategies). FOO Strategies are “easy” (those quotes are important in this context) ways to achieve a goal in a game, so easy that sometimes can be used as the only way to achieve anything. Think in, as the Extra Credits guys say in the video above, the Noob Tube in Modern Warfare series.  FOO Strategies are important, not only because they represent a balancing technique between new players and old ones (as said in the video), but also because players using a FOO Strategies are saying that they understand the basics of a game.

Football also has FOO Strategies, and that’s when no rule about BP is a flaw. To talk about it we have two huge examples today.

This guy.

And this guy.

Two opposite sides of the same coin. The FOO Strategies coin in Football.

When you have no rule over BP you can either have no BP at all or keep it to yourself as long as you can. There is nothing to stop you to do whatever you want. As a FOO Strategy, it is easy to understand why having the majority of BP in a game can be an actual functional strategy, but how having no BP at all works?, that’s just plain stupid at first sight. Not to this other guy from here:

Helenio Herrera

Back in the 60′s, Mr. Herrera managed Inter, nicknamed Grande Inter by that time due the achievements Herrera made with his team. Long story short, influenced by the work of Austrian manager Karl Rappan, Herrera used a 5-3-2 formation, creating what today is known as the Catenaccio. The Libero position was introduced, but most important thant that, a main counterattact based strategy was also defined. As an hyper-defensive way to play, the Catenaccio actually gives to the other team the ball, and uses long passes over the opponent defense in thunder attacts in order to score. In this way, Herrera simplifies the labour of his attackers by making practically impossible for the other team to score.

And it worked.

It worked so good that another revolution had to be created in order to stop Herrera’s. Rinus Michel created his Totaalvoatbal (Total Football) with the only purpose of breaking apart Herrera’s strategy. When focused on this hyper-defensive attituted, Catenaccio players need to identify which players in the opposing team have to be nulified, and this need is particularly important for the libero. What Michel did while being Ajax’s manager was to train his players to cover any position in the field at any given moment if necessary; a defender can be an attacker if needed, or vice versa. In this way, Catenaccio has no effect because no particular player could be double-marked (one of the libero’s main functions), or even in some points of the game, Ajax’s attackers outnumbered Inter’s defenders without jeopardizing his own defense (which is a true achievement considering the 5 in that 5-3-2 Inter’s formation).

Today, neither Catenaccio nor Totaalvoatbal as strategies exist anymore. The libero position was surpassed by Michel’s ideas, and due the physical nature that football gained since the 80′s (player over-specialization is a clear consecuence of that), Totaalvoatbal is practically impossible to perform these days. But what remains today is the influence of those systems. An influence that actually defines football as we know it.

Understood as a FOO Strategy, Catenaccio actually makes a lot of sense. It involves two keys and clear ideas that players can quickly understand, and more than that, those ideas can be applied in several situations (against many different teams). Catenaccio evolved through time to 4-4-2 (widespreed but wrongly named Catenaccio as well, which also applies to any hyper-defensive strategy ), and today it represents an opportunity to those teams which are in a clear disavantage. Money power could create (over-) starred teams, but even though, a hyper-defensive but well executed strategy can (and in fact, should) represent a real chance to win.

And this is when the quotes on easy comes to mind. Contrary to popular beliefs, Catenaccio (or any nowadays hyper-defensive strategy) is not easy at all to implemet. It requires a lot of discipline and focus, not to mention the physical strength and game vision neccesary to execute both the defensive actions and the counterattacks.

On the other hand, Totaalvoatbal is not a FOO Strategy. The central idea implies a lot of actions that need to be applied almost perfectly in each game (and also needed a crack like Johan Cruyff to be successful), but what represents a FOO Strategy is a consecuence of that type of game. When played, Totaalvoatbal involves a lot of ball movement (mostly short passes, or “touches”), and that translates into a lot of BP. So, a way to keep BP is by moving the ball a lot, until you find the way to the opponents net.

A crack.

Incredible as it could sounds, that reasoning is being putted in practice just recently. I’m not saying that touching didn’t exist before Michel’s Ajax, that is not true, and even Cruyff himself always believed in it and used as main tactic in his manager career, but the clear dominance of Catenaccio school of play (worlwide spread by Italy National Football Team) is possible a reason that ball movement wasn’t a clearly successful tactic until now. Tiki-Taka is what this “move the ball as long as you can” is named, and last FIFA World Champion, Spain National Football Team, is a clear proof that it works.

In today’s terms, Jose Mourinho’s treble winner Inter is maybe the best representation of Catenaccio heritage, and Guardiola’s Barcelona (and as said, Aragones/Del Bosque’s Spain National Football Team) is the other side of the coin, the Totaalvoatbal influence. Notice that even when catalogued as FOO Strategies, but of them took their time in football’s history to be developed. Add that as a reason for the quotes on easy.

So, why even when these strategies have a rich story and a lot to tell about the football as a game, it is a flaw not to have a rule about BP in football?.

Remember what I said about Greece early on? well, the thing is that, viewed from the purely game design perspective, Barça/Spain’s type of play represents the same problem.

Hyper-defensive schemes are criticized as the worst part of football, but what I think that is being criticized is not the actual strategy, but its poor use as a FOO Strategy. When applied poorly, hyper-defensive tactics are, in fact, the worst part of football. What Herrera envisioned and perfectly implemented was more like Mourinho’s Inter. To watch it clear, you just have to remember the first game of 2009-2010 UCL semifinal against Barça. That 3-1 winning score wasn’t a coincidence, it was a superior team playing a superior strategy (in that particular match). A strong defense with lethal strikers just thinking in thunder and incredibly executed counterattacks. You may say that the second game, when Barça was clearly superior, is a counterexample of what I’m saying, but you have to remember that those are 180 min. games. That second game is actually what Herrera planned: “sorry guys, I just defend my scored goals better than you make yours”.

What happened with Greece is a bad example of Catenaccio used as a FOO Strategy. Greece actually didn’t make a goal other than using free kicks and corners after the groups stage. That says in bold that Greece abandoned the counterattack part of Herrera’s ideas. And that is just stupid. Defending is just half of the strategy. (And even though, they won the Eurocup, which proves Catenaccio as FOO Strategy and a balancing one in football.)

Take that, logic!

Greece just gave the ball but didn’t let the other team to play by defending. Literally.

Barça/Spain just keep the ball and by that they don’t let the other team to play by touching. Literally.

So, how is that Greece was a poor team by not letting the other team to play but Barça/Spain are amazing teams by not letting the other team to play?. There are a lot of shades of gray in that comparisson, but I know that if you are reading this far you get the point.

We are analizing strategies. If Greece (or even Inter) is a poor team because it didn’t let the other team to play, then Barça/Spain are also poor teams by the same argument, which maybe doesn’t prove, but at least points at that no having a BP rule in football is just plain unfair. What those teams are doing is making a FOO Strategy their main strategy. But as I said, FOO Strategies are basic ones, the easiest compared to others.

Barça and Inter are as good or as bad no matter how you judge one or another. They are using the exact same reasoning, but in a complementary way.

And that last paragraph just allows me to say: You need to stablish, from the rules themselves, that each team has about the same amount of chances of scoring.

That is an strong assertion, but it is true.

Hold your horses. Maybe I’m not a big fan of Barça/Spain, but I do know what they represent for today’s football, and I admire and respect that. I’m just analizing from the purely game design point of view.

Which bring us to the ultimate question of this post: What the fuck have all these to do with Modern Warfare 3 and game design at all?

There are 2 answers actually: design improvement and aesthetics.

But that is a matter of the second part of this post.

(Note: I just grabbed a bunch of images I found on the internet and putted in here. They belong to their belongers, not to me… of course).

The next paragraphs are a quote of the book Reality is Broken, by game designer Jane McGonigal. This book is a radical and visionary perspective of how games and game design have to be viewed in our modern world and how they could change our future. You can find the quoted text in the final chapter.

The book is a mandatory read for any aspiring or experienced game designer.

Reality is too easy. Reality is depressing, It’s unproductive, and hopeless. It’s disconnected, and trivial. It’s hard to get into. It’s pointless, unrewarding, lonely and isolating. It’s hard to swallow. It’s unsustainable. It’s unambitious. It’s disorganized and divided. It’s stuck in the presente.

Reality is all of these things. But in at least one crucially important way, reality is also better: reality is our destiny.

We are hardwired to care about reality – with every cell in our bodies and every neuron in our brains. We are the result of five million years’ worth of genetic adaptations, each and every one designed to help us survive our natural environment and thrive in our real, physical world.

That’s why our single most urgent mission in life – the mission of every human being on the planet – is to engage with reality, as fully and as deeply as we can, every waking moment of our lives.

That doesn’t mean we can’t play games.

It simply means that we have to stop thinking of games as only scapist entertainment.

So how should we think of games, if not as scapist entertainmnet?

We should think of them the same way the ancient Lydians did.

Let’s turn back one more time to the provocative history that herodotus told of why the ancient Lydians invented dice games: so that they could band together to survive and eighteen-year famine, by playing dice games on alternate days and eating on the others.

There are three key values we share in common with the ancient Lydians when it comes to how and why we play games today.

For the starving and suffering Lydians, games were a way to raise real quality of life. This was their primary function: to provide real positive emotions, real positive experiences, and real social connections during a difficult time.

This is still the primary function of games for us today. They serve to make our real lives better. And they serve this purpose beautifully, better tan any other tool we have. No one is immunce to boredon or anxiety, loneliness or depression. Games solve these problems, quickly, cheaply, and dramatically.

Life is hard, and games make it better.

(…)

We can no longer afford to view games as separate from our real lives and our real work. It is no only a waste of the potential of games to do real good –  it is simply untrue.

Games don’t distract us from our real lives. The fill our real lives: with positive emotions, positive activity, positive experiences, and positive strengths.

Games aren’t leading us to the downfall of human civilization. They’re leading us to its reinvention.

The great challenge for us today, and for the remainder of the century, is to integrate games more closely into our everyday lives, and to embrace them as a platform for collaboration on our most important planetary efforts.

If we commit to the harnessing the power of games for real happiness and real change, then a better reality is more than possible – it is likely. And in that case, our future together will be quite extraordinary.