Its the end of the year, it is! Its been a very short year this year. I mean, not in actual atomic time, but in my perception of time. Time cant actually shift in pace unless you do something with gravity or something along those lines. Ewan really wants to explain that, but I'm not going to give him the satisfaction. So lets review things, whilst trying to answer some of these questions about university and what not. What do I intend to get from my university experience, you ask? I'm not sure, but its not a lie that our degree itself (as in the physical little piece of paper thingy) isn't worth much. Not if you're headed to the game industry anyway. We've always been competing with lots of very skilled and dedicated people who haven't gone near a university, because primarily that's what the industry is looking for- skill and dedication. There's already been a blog post about that, so lets not get into it here. But the point is that its my own skill and development that has to evolve in order for me to get the most i can out the course. Its really refreshing actually, when it does just become about personal development rather than some final goal. Improvement never ends, and there isn't really an end goal. In terms of reflection on the year, I do feel like I've made a pretty big improvement in terms of both my 2D and 3D ability. I've also got a pretty clear picture of my direction over the near future, in that I'm pretty set on setting up a studio over this coming summer, and there is a single large project lined up for the coming year. This is a venture that a close friend of mine is embarking upon with me, and we'll see how that turns out. Its a good time to be an indie developer, and whilst its going to be ridiculously hard, its certainly something I have to go with. I've got a few goals for the summer than involve learning coding and more technical elements of game production- which is going to be fun, for sure. I'm really looking forward to starting third year as I really feel that a lot of my progression has been through the means of the university. I have definitely improved in my personal work too, but the network of like-minded people at university can't be beaten. Ive learned so much from my peers in particular, and it cant be understated how inspiring they are. Actually, whilst we're on the subject- a lot of the first years seem to have made really good progress.
I'm sure that third year will probably fly by faster than this year has, and this will all be over very soon. But the great thing about this course will be that in many ways, our degree itself isn't the target. Where other people will hit that target and think- "What next?" We'll be going on as always, just trying to better our abilities and ultimately ourselves as people. It never ends. Is this next quote relevant? Not really, it's quite cool though. People do that, don't they? End big things with quotes and all.
Its an interesting topic. I'm not going to pretend I know much about this topic, as I'm not a teacher nor am I anything to do with teaching. I haven't had any experience in the field, and my opinion is probably uneducated and therefore kind of irreverent. Were this a conversation in public, I wouldn't get involved- hahahahaha, who I am kidding? Of course I'd get involved. I'm opinionated about things I have no right to be opinionated on, and I'd probably just enjoy playing the devils advocate. But seriously, I don't know enough about it to really say. With that said, this is a blog, and you're expecting a response. So here goes.
To a point, we have to learn hard stuff, right? I mean, let me try and articulate that a little better. We have to learn certain things that we cannot be without. Equipping someone with the tools for self-learning is probably one of the best things you can do, but its tough, and sometimes it takes a long time for people to take the initiative and start learning themselves. For that reason, I believe there are core skills which should be taught regardless of anything else. This applies especially to creative industries like ours. You shouldn't force people down holes, because then you end up getting little replicas of the teachers, and ultimately nothing evolves. That's it, isn't it? Evolution. You need those random differences, and you need to encourage them in order to progress somewhere in the long run. Every student that is the same as its teacher, won't progress the system. A person must be more than just the sum of his or her learning, and has to expand for themselves. That kind of growth should be taken into account in the academic world, and I believe it is. Open ended projects like some of the ones we do, along with a focus on personal work, help students find identity and evolve! Progression is tough when you're given restrictions. As I said before though, we need rules god damnit! We need certain structures, systems people can't waver from at least until they have mastered the ground works. The games industry supposedly wants people who are highly trained, right? Well give them that! Its a difficult task no doubt, but you can be both highly trained and self-progressive. Its interesting that some members of the industry have been noted as saying they prefer employees with liberal arts backgrounds, because that would promote that self-progressive idea. But there is no reason that you can't have both. You can high train yourself before using those skills to better access and expand with your own concepts and ideas, and taking a more open approach to learning as a whole. Then you get the best of both worlds, and that would be an ideal employee. But they're hard to come by, because that kind of thing takes time. And time takes money, and money takes jobs, and jobs take a liberal art background or intense training, and so we're stuck. Stuck.
Creativity? That's mean. How is someone supposed to explain what creativity is? Theres a very good talk, you know, by John Cleese. He talks all about this kind of thing, and in a way I can't really match up to. I don't know why you're here asking me about these things, go and see him! He's famous, you know! He's got it all wrapped up, all settled down, all sorted, bish bash bosh! But still, you did come here (for some reason unbeknownst to me) and so I supposed I have to provide you with an answer. I'll link you to his video anyway, because y'know, that's where you should be, but aside from that I'll talk about my feelings on the matter and kind of steal all I can from John Cleese. Alrighty then.
Did you watch it? No? Well it is quite long, but you should probably open it up whilst you're in the bath, or doing a spreadsheet, or whatever it is you do in your time.
Creativity is our ability to... well.... to be creative. To create. Yes, we'll go with that. Its our ability to answer problems and to think without constraint in order to provide those solutions. As John Cleese says in his wonderful talk, there are two kinds of mindset- closed and open. Suprise suprise, you have to be in the "open" mindset in order to challenge ideas and concepts from various angles, until you find something which works. This, in essence, is being creative. It is closing the guidebook and coming at the problem with your own system, and thats where all those crazy little stupid ideas are born. Creativity does not lead to good ideas. In fact, creativity leads to an awful lot of terrible ideas, but thats where our closed mindset comes in! You see, with a closed mindset we can act on the decisions we made previously in our open mindset, and apply them correctly. Trying to apply anything whilst still being "creative" is futile, as you will find yourself rejigging your ideas and finding alternate approaches when really all you need is a bit of focus to see the idea through- to see if an idea is strong or not. In our closed mindset we can test our ideas rigorously, cleansing the chaff from the gold, and thats how we eventually do (or do not) find good ideas.
Some people can apply both of these mindsets together, in a sense, flicking between them to eliminate potential negative ideas as soon as they manifest themselves. We all do this, really, and there are always ideas we can almost instantly rule out as poor. With that said, it doesn't explain why we though of those ideas in the first place. Why would our mind wander to those things if we knew that they would be useless and a waste of time? In general, people dont seem to have as much control over their creative mind, as it runs rampant like an electronic two-year-old. Controlling our closed mindset is the only way to ensure that our open mindset doesn't get out of hand.
The industry as a whole has changed a lot in recent years. Thats not just in terms of the way that the industry is run, either. At a fundamental level, the audience for games has changed dramatically over the past decade or so, especially with the advent of the smartphone and the tablet. This huge boom in audience has forced the gaming industry to adapt to fill that market, and because of that there has been a large change in the way games are made. The industry is worth more today than it ever has been before, and in order to deal with massive expense of making games there are various ways that the industry tackles this problem. Firstly, there are power-house companies like EA which take relatively few risks, but reap high rewards. In general, within the AAA field I feel like a lot of "gamers", that is people who believe themselves to have a stronger relationship with games than most people, feel as though the industry is becoming more and more saturated with the same kinds of experiences. This is because, of course, they make the most money, and in an industry where financial success is incredibly difficult due to high-cost production, taking large risks could mean the death of an entire studio.
Publishers like EA also form umbrellas for smaller studios, which is where more high-risk ventures can be embarked upon. Although a massive amount of market research is done into these fields, mobile gaming is a finicky situation. Games on such devices are played by numbers of people that blow the biggest triple-A title playerbases out of the water, but the way that people pay for these experiences are changing. Less than paying for an individual product, users now pay for various micro-transactions and in-app purchases to enhance their experience. This is a change to a system which has remained fundamentally the same for the entire history of the gaming world- pay for a product, get a product.
With all that said, there is still room for innovation in the industry- and that comes through how easy it is to make games when compared to 10 years ago. Now, there is a real focus on making software both usable and inexpensive enough for smaller developers, with licensed engines and community platforms like Steam Greenlight, creating your own game has never been easier. This is where a lot of big risks come in terms of gameplay, because production values for an indie studio are usually much lower than for their AAA cousins. To set themselves apart, indie developers must find unique ways of challenging the medium or creating something special for gamers to experience.
With games being like little worlds that we as players immerse ourselves within, we have to ensure that the gateways between our 2 worlds are smooth and seamless. When watching a film, that gateway is the screen itself. With the recent push for "3D" in cinema and even on home theater systems, the medium of film is trying to find ways to expand that doorway, to provide new experiences. Sometimes innovation for the sake of innovation can cost the quality of an experience, but we'll get to that later. Games, on the other hand, have more than just the screen to connect the audience with the experience. Actual input devices need to be conceived in order for games to exist- that defines them as interactive experiences.
Controllers our usually our main input for games, and for the most part they have remained very similar for a very long time. Nowadays, there is a fairly standardized controller setup which includes 4 face buttons, 2 movement pads or analogues as well as pairs of shoulder buttons. It took a long time to get there, but the three major games companies have all adopted this system. This is probably down in part to the prevalence of multi-platform games available today. Games like Call of Duty and Need For Speed are released on all systems, and therefore all systems need to share controller similarities to make porting easier for those platforms. The wii-u gamepad incorporates a second touch screen to use as a further method of input for players, but as this is a console-specific feature it is rarely utilized effectively unless at the hands of nintendo. The same goes for the Kinect, the xbox one's smart camera interface. A very powerful piece of tech, the Kinect has found a place amongst software developers outside of the gaming industry, pushing concepts like PC navigation and even surgical software. On the gaming front it doesn't fare so well, with few games using it and those that do being generally negatively received. Again, innovation for the sake of innovation is a mistake in my opinion, and doesn't seem to add anything intuitive to the industry. VR headsets like the occulus rift promise a new and more immersive way to experience games, coupling recent leaps in 3D technology along with head-tracking systems. The truth behind this remains to be seen, but there is clearly a lot of potential here. At least more than with the Virtual Boy anyway...
Oh boy, sound! Music in games has always been a favourite of mine, and I have a few favourites to show you! You can never underestimate the power of sound, man. A game with stellar visuals is all well and good, but if things don't sound good you're not going to want to be there for long. Memorable music can of course leave you thinking and feeling about a game way after you've put down the controller, and certainly helps to create a more memorable experience. When a game has a good soundtrack, it can be enjoyed separate from the game experience itself, and therefore you spend more time in the world of the game than you otherwise would have. But beyond the music of a game, sound has a massive impact on other elements of the game. From sound effects to voice acting, everything has to come together to make a truly solid experience.
You can almost hear it now...
F.E.A.R (monolith, 2006) is a game that doesn't do many things well, but still stands as a well-received favorite of shooter and horror fans alike. There are 2 reasons for this, and both have a lot to do with sound. Firstly, the soundtrack is stellar. Incorporating eerie soundscapes with indian throat singing, F.E.A.Rs music paints a bleak picture of otherworldly pain that is almost wasted on the game itself. Almost. The other reason that F.E.A.R can make so many mistakes and still offer up one of the best gameplay experiences of the past decade is its gunplay. The shooting mechanics of the game are incredibly solid, every weapon feels like a violent machine of fury in your hands, and this is down in no small part to the way they sound. Every gunshot resonates through your body, and the sound designers have clearly created every punchy bullet sound, every ricocheting casing tingle with a lot of love and attention.
But, back to soundtracks, heres one I want to show you now. Its my personal favorite, not least because it was written by someone with relatively little experience in the field and yet turned out so, so good. Its heartfelt, its varied, its memorable, and it tells a story in a game that doesn't really have much of a story to tell. World Of Goo is a success in many regards, but a large part of that has to be its music. Its about as visual as music can get, entire scenarios reduced to audio-waves. Do have a listen to it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Engines are a big deal in the industry. The strength of an engine has a massive impact on the way a game can work and the kinds of things it can achieve. In a sense, games themselves are limited by the power of the engines they are built in, and this extends well beyond visual fidelity. Certain engines can allow for more complicated AI, or interactive elements not possible in other engines. Half Life 2 was built in the Source engine, and incorporated a physics engine called Havok to manage its environmental physics simulations. For its time, this provided a much more realistic approach to the way the elements of the game world interacted with one another. This allowed for physics puzzles and whole sections of the game driven by these systems. Source also implemented a complex facial-animation system to portray characters more realistically than had ever been achieved before, thus adding to the overall immersion of the game and no doubt helping it claim its place amongst video-games most effective storytelling experiences. This, along with the overall improvement in the visuals of the game, show how engines are massively important in the development and limits of a project.
Half Life 2
So, what engines are on offer today? Well Source is still kicking about, and the first-person shooter Titanfall is using it, or at least a modified version of it. The engine powering the most games at the moment is Epic Games' Unreal Development Kit, built on Unreal Engine 3. The success of this engine is down primarily to its friendly user interface (something that source is in dire need of) as well as its adaptability. UDK can be used to develop games for all kinds of platforms, from current to next gen and all the way down to mobile devices. Another is Cryengine 3, an engine which is arguably more advanced than UDK and offers a wonderful dynamic lighting solution (something which both Source and UDK have difficulty implementing, but is slowly becoming a staple of the console/PC games market) With that said, there is a reason that few developers choose to use Cryengine 3 over UDK, and it comes down to the aforementioned adaptability. Also it has to be considered that a license for cryengine can be much more expensive than one for UDK (which is aimed at both triple A studios and indie developers alike).
