Game.Developer.2010.02.pdf

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Game Developer - February 2010
VOL17NO2 FEBRUARY2010
PLANNING A SOUND
BONUS POSTMORTEM
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CONTENTS.0210
VOLUME 17 NUMBER 2
POSTMORTEM
DEPARTMENTS
22 GEARBOX'S B ORDERLANDS
As Gearbox's first original IP in many years, B ORDERLANDS had a lot
riding on it. The game wound up having an interesting design coupled
with a new art style—but it didn't start that way. The team took a
circuitous route to success, as Aaron Thibault explains.
By Aaron Thibault
2 GAME PLAN By Brandon Sheffield
[EDITORIAL]
Sweating the Small Stuff
4 HEADS UP DISPLAY
[NEWS]
IGF finalists announced, 2009 console market statistics,
and Flashpunk release information.
14 REDLYNX'S T RIALS HD
The T RIALS series has been around for some time, but T RIALS HD marks
RedLynx's first breakout success. Discussed here are the troubles
getting up and running on XBLA, the magic of physics, and more.
By Jorma Sainio, Sebastian Aaltonen, Antti Ilvessuo, and Tero Virtala
37 TOOL BOX By Logan Foster
[REVIEW]
3D Interactive's pureLIGHT
40 THE INNER PRODUCT By Adam Saltsman
[PROGRAMMING]
Constructed Procedural Generation
FEATURES
44 DESIGN OF THE TIMES By Soren Johnson
[DESIGN]
Theme is not Meaning
6 2010 GDC PREVIEW GUIDE
Talk highlights, summit discussions, and information abound in our
annual pre-GDC feature. We make the choices so you don't have to!
By Game Developer an d Gamasutra.com staff
47 PIXEL PUSHER By Steve Theodore
[ART]
Pushbutton Art?
51 AURAL FIXATION By Vincent Diamante
[SOUND]
20 STATE OF DEVELOPMENT
In this Game Developer Research-partnered report, we reveal stats
and figures related to our audience, from number of employees to
core markets and game engine usage.
By Chris Remo
Surfing the Loop
52 GOOD JOB!
[CAREER]
Brett Seyler interview, and who went where.
58 EDUCATED PLAY
[EDUCATION]
32 SOUND PROPAGATION
Sound propagation systems help your game sound more realistic,
but some teams still don't implement them. Scott Haraldsen outlines
what it takes to make this happen, including design considerations.
By Scott Haraldsen
Focus on DePaul University's student game
T HE D EVIL ' S T UNING F ORK
64 ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT By Matthew Wasteland
[HUMOR]
Your Annual Review
COVER ART: BORDERLANDS ART TEAM
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GAME PLAN // BRANDON SHEFFIELD
UBM Think Services, 600 Harrison St., 6th Fl.,
San Francisco, CA 94107
t: 415.947.6000 f: 415.947.6090
SWEATING THE SMALL STUFF
THE NEW YEAR'S TO-DO LIST
SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES
FOR INFORMATION, ORDER QUESTIONS, AND
ADDRESS CHANGES
t: 800.250.2429 f: 847.763.9606
EDITORIAL
PUBLISHER
Simon Carless l scarless@gdmag.com
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Brandon Sheffield l bsheffield@gdmag.com
PRODUCTION EDITOR
Jeffrey Fleming l jfleming@gdmag.com
ART DIRECTOR
Joseph Mitch l jmitch@gdmag.com
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Jesse Harlin
Steve Theodore
Daniel Nelson
Soren Johnson
Damion Schubert
ADVISORY BOARD
Hal Barwood Designer-at-Large
Mick West Independent
Brad Bulkley Neversoft
Clinton Keith Independent
Bijan Forutanpour Sony Online Entertainment
Mark DeLoura Independent
Carey Chico Pandemic Studios
ADVERTISING SALES
GLOBAL SALES DIRECTOR
t: 415.947.6227
MEDIA ACCOUNT MANAGER
John Malik Watson e : jmwatson@think-services.com
t: 415.947.6224
GLOBAL ACCOUNT MANAGER, EDUCATION
AND RECRUITMENT
t: 415.947.6241
COORDINATOR, EDUCATION AND RECRUITMENT
t: 415.947.6223
ADVERTISING PRODUCTION
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Pete C. Scibilia e: peter.scibilia@ubm.com
t: 516-5 62-5134
REPRINTS
WRIGHT'S REPRINTS
t: 877.652.5295
THINK SERVICES
CEO UBM THINK SERVICES Philip Chapnick
GROUP DIRECTOR Kathy Schoback
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Cliff Scorso
CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER Anthony Adams
AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT
TYSON ASSOCIATES Elaine Tyson
LIST RENTAL Merit Direct LLC t: 914.368.1000
MARKETING
MARKETING SPECIALIST Mellisa Andrade
UBM TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER David Levin
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Scott Mozarsky
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER David Wein
CORPORATE SENIOR VP SALES Anne Marie Miller
SENIOR VP, STRATEGIC DEV. AND BUSINESS ADMIN. Pat Nohilly
SENIOR VP, MANUFACTURING Marie Myers
2009 HAS COME AND GONE,
and we enter a new decade of new
challenges. But some of the old
issues still linger. That’s what I’d
like to focus on this month—my
pet peeves in modern games,
most of which can be fixed now.
We needn’t wait until 2011!
that to a separate subset of a
different menu wheel ... it’s just
not a great idea. I think it says
something about the maturity
of our industry that a game can
have an interface with that level
of trouble and still be critically
and commercially successful
(and which I will play through to
completion anyway).
proceeding into the single player
campaign. But just last week I
played L EFT 4 D EAD 2 with a person
who had never touched a twinstick
first person game before. For
him, this would have been useful,
because even though he intuitively
knew where he wanted to go and
where to aim, never having used
both sticks before, the learning
curve was very steep.
LACK OF STEREO
DOWNMIXING
» I still play games on a two-
speaker television, and so do a
whole lot of other folks. Until the
entire world has 5.1 surround,
there needs to be a viable two-
speaker option. It surprises me how
many big budget games have this
problem. Just the other day I was
playing some A RMY OF T WO : T HE 40 TH
D AY , and in the intro cinematic, I
didn’t realize until halfway through
that there was a narration, because
it was so low in the mix. Once the
game started up, the in-game
cutscenes were a bit better, but not
by much—critical dialog about what
to do and where to go was hard to
hear unless I turned my character
to the side of the one talking to me.
From big budget games like F AR C RY
2 to smaller titles like B LACK S ITE :
A REA 51, games continue to ignore
the default audio setup of the
average consumer.
TEXTURE STREAMING
» Storage has increased over
the years, not only in terms of the
physical disc media, but also the
RAM and hard drives of consoles.
So why are we still waiting several
seconds for normals and textures
to properly appear in many big
name titles? Texture pop runs
rampant through the industry,
even when it comes to the
largest and most accomplished
companies. Some teams can do
it, some can’t. It does depend on
what type of game you’re making
at times, but really, I’m not sure
there’s a context in which you
absolutely couldn’t fix this, given
the time and dedication.
LONG LOAD TIMES
ON CONSOLE
» I thought I’d end with some-
thing to make everyone feel a
little better about themselves,
because it’s tough to fix, and easy
to shift the blame onto console
makers. Load times are incredibly
difficult to get rid of, and I don’t
expect they’ll go away anytime
soon. But there are things we can
be doing with background loads,
loading during cutscenes, more
advanced streaming, or even
reuse/recombination of assets
(as is often done in open-world
games). In the old days, we
used to fear the “juggling mon-
key”—the animated monkey that
appeared on the loading screen
of old Neo Geo CD games. In those
days, you were waiting for several
of megs of data to load—in the
Dreamcast and PS2 era, loading
came down a bit, but now it feels
like I’m staring down that old jug-
gling monkey once again.
NO TUTORIALS
» It’s amazing to think that in
this day and age there are still
some games that don’t offer
proper tutorials. Tutorials that are
fun and properly integrated into
the narrative are ideal, but even
something that just tells me how I
should play would be great. Some
just throw you to the wolves.
Picking on D RAGON A GE again,
a certain level of knowledge was
presumed, which when combined
with the confusing menus, led to
me not knowing how to use an
item to heal my injuries until about
10 hours in, when I just decided to
fiddle with menus til I could find
the option. The game did inform
me that I should heal, but gave me
no indication of how I should do it.
Some folks made fun of the
gated tutorial in H ALO 2, in which
you had to independently test your
left and right analog sticks before
CONTEXTUALLY-DIFFERENT
UI BUTTONS
» You know those Windows
Mobile smartphones which map
the same buttons to different
options in different contexts within
the same program? And you
know how everyone hates that?
Consider this when designing
menus and UI, because a lot of
games look a lot like Windows
Mobile. D RAGON A GE is a game I
love—I put in 60+ hours on the
Xbox 360 version—but the menus
are rather atrocious.
Switching which buttons
do what depending in whether
I’m in a store or in the field, and
not allowing use of items in
organizational menus, but setting
HIGH FIVES FOR A
NEW FUTURE
» Games are getting more
engrossing, more varied, and
more complex, and I think the
industry is moving in impressive
directions. Every once in a while
though, it’s good to take stock of
the things we still haven’t fixed
before we move on to what’s next.
And of course, this was only a
fraction of what we need to work
on—as luck would have it, there
are only so many words I can fit
on a page!
—Brandon Sheffield
2
GAME DEVELOPER | FEBRUARY 2010
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