Happy New Year!

2007 is almost over. Reason enough for an extensive look back at the posts and comments of this blog.

Debugging

It’s not really a “debacle”, more of a somewhat interesting story (the kind you read when you desperately search for ways not to work). Maybe “somewhat” is even exaggerating things, but to spice it up, I’m going to throw in a screenshot! – Later, though.

Whenever I code something for our game, which happens often, I sooner or later manage to mess it up and include lots of bugs. This is nothing unusual, of course. Common practice is, naturally, to just leave them in and maybe release a patch later if you can be bothered to debug the code, to take a close look at it and to fix it. The engine we use (yes, we use a game-development-toolkit. I’m sorry if that destroyed your expectations. The reasons are pretty simple: We don’t have that much time and we’d rather spend it on envision our game and thinking up scenarios to end up on all the important sites and how people discuss the game than actually doing work, of which we had more if we made our own engine, and yes, I once did that) has a debugger included and for the most part, it works pretty well. But that is not the only way to debug things. Often, I place little instructions that draw something on the screen as long as something is executed. This can be lines, pictures or, by far used most often, text. Which is why whenever I play/test, weird words keep appearing on the screen.

It’s funny to see them – well, sometimes it is, because you never take your time with these. You don’t spend minutes trying to think up something clever, you just write down the first thing that comes to your mind. Which is why the words “Keep rollin’” appeared on the screen whenever the character moved.

The problem is that I’m often too lazy to remove these and sooner or later, the screen fills up with useless messages and numbers that I have to remove. So then, I enter the search in the editor and find lots of “draw_text”-instructions. At this point, the sentence has lost all of its charm and magic, not to mention humor (if it even existed in the first place, which might be argued), and you become more and more angry at them everytime you read it. This is a subtle but clever way of the programming gods to drive you insane.

There is a special debugging panel on the screen that I added when I was motivated enough to do it in a nice way. Two numbers now always appear on the screen:

These numbers appear in the top left corner right now.

Now, this panel appears at the top left corner and tells me two things – that I both don’t really need to know anymore. The “0″ is at which part in the dialog we are – there was no dialog when I started it, so its still at zero. But what could the other number be? It’s a quiz!

-E

Happy holidays!

This may not qualify as an “exciting” update, but come one – Christmas is right around the corner! We’re so close, I suppose I could enter that cave in which we’ve locked away the people working on the games and put a little christmas tree in there, but I’m afraid that I may forget to lock the door again, and we mustn’t let them run away. So no christmas tree for them.

Happy holidays everyone! I mean, obviously, I don’t know what you celebrate (in case you actually do celebrate), and you always have to be careful on the internet. Happy… week? Can you say that? Is that allowed? In case that you are offended, feel free to post a comment. Because I may not answer immideatly, I’m going to give a few apologies in advance just in case:

Excuse me, I’m sorry, I did not know that, Sorry.

That is all.

Communication with Characters

It’s a new blog post! Just when it seemed that “not daily anymore” means “never again”, there is something new to read! Just like it was Christmas.

I liked Hotel Dusk. I know that many complained given that there was too much text and that the game thus was superslow. But the story was awesome (despite the many coincidences) and the characters all had an interesting backstory. There was enough suspension of disbelief to make them feel “alive” in the context of the game. The game really managed to show their personalities. Of course, given that the game is all about its story and doesn’t try to be much more (only throwing a few puzzles in), that was an important point. And, as we all know very well by now, given that I say it in about every post, there are also characters and a story in our game. And you will talk to the characters.

But just talking isn’t enough. As one of the many, many peoply researching that topic found out, it’s impossible to not communicate. Even when you don’t say anything, thats a way of communication (essentially telling the other person that you either don’t want to talk to him/her or about a certain topic). The same goes for a reply to a certain topic. But how does the character avoid the reply? Is he looking up from his desk, where lots of files wait for him, quickly bursting out that he doesn’t have time? Or is he avoiding to look at you, facing the floor somewhere to the right of his feet, only to mumble that he doesn’t know anything about it? While both are technically avoiding the answer, the first one seems to be honestly doing it because he doesn’t have time (his reply and his surroundings both give that impression), while the second seems to know something about it, but maybe, a honest reply would be too embarassing for him to give – or too dangerous. Note though that the first character may actually have other reasons than that to avoid replying, but using his excuse for now. It’s another way to characterize the people in your game, and its one that isn’t use too often – at least I can’t think of an example from the top of my head.

And then, there are the things you do while talking. This is the point where I get back to Hotel Dusk. The art style of that game is amazing, with each character only in black and white (well, plus shades of grey). They all have a few animations that they basically only use in conversations (safe for opening the door or handing out an item). And you can recognize their personality in these animations as well: One may bend back due to laughter, while another may only smile a bit. It’s both valid, depending on the type of character (extroverted vs introverted). Some poses are used by all kind of characters, (although the strength of their meaning may vary) like folding your arms – generally meaning that someone is trying to keep their distance from other people. And don’t get me started on headmovement. Does it always mean someone is lying when he looks to the left when he answers? Probably not, but then, thats what they say. It certainly is an indication if someone is avoiding eye-contact.

As you can see – it’s kind of an interesting topic. See how many options there are to characterize people? And now, you can see why its so much work in the game – you have to match the tone of the character, their facial animations, there gestures… it’s all part of the big image the player gets. It’s also lots of work.

For example, I tried to create the “folding-the-arms”-animation today. I’m not an animator, but the result is definately useable. Hopefully, you will see it soon enough!

-E

That’s no fun!

One important aspect in any story are emotions of the characters. And, of course, you want the reader – in our case, the player – to feel with the characters, you want to evoke something. It’s one thing to let them think “Oh my god, so THATS what he’s after!” or “Wow, I am so awesome”, and thats fine. But then, in books or TV shows, often the main character has to endure XYZ or is shocked by something unexpected. And then, the reader/viewer does not necessarily feel good at that point.

These kinds of moments exist in videogames – sure. But its nothing that happens often. Especially not in the ending: Most games end on a happy note (their “real” end, not a “Game Over”, of course). Some manage to have a happy-yet-thought-provoking end, or one where only one of many problems are solved.

Would you play a game that makes you feel bad – for the sake of the argument, maybe even miserable – for what you do, or forced to do? Not necessarily because it is morally wrong, but maybe because the situation you find yourself in may be bad (Imagine a playable nightmare, as an example)? The horror game genre aside, few games are brave enough to try this.

But is it okay to have a game end sadly? Isn’t the ending supposed to be the reward for the player, the final “Well done”-accolade? How stupid would it be if all that hard (hah!) work was in vain, it was all for nothing, you never did something good!

Certainly, it might prove to be thought-provoking. Speaking of which – any thoughts?

-E

Let’s redefine “daily” now

Hi guys. It’s “E” again, here to give you a quick announcement. Remember when we said “DAILY UPDATES FROM NOW! COMMENT!”? You probably do remember at least one time we did, given that I moan about the daily-thing in almost all of my post, while the comment-thing is in all of them (no “almost” needed here!). Well, that was a great goal to set. It resulted in lots of posts. Now, given that we just had one week with no updates (yeah, not quite, whatever), I might as well change that policy.

There will still be updates – I hope – but not necessarily daily. I try to do them somewhat daily, but I won’t promise anything this time. I changed the sidebar text a while ago already. I was thinking ahead. You should still check back regulary, but don’t hate us if there isn’t a new post every day.

The reason to all this? When I originally did that “daily updates” thing, I thought we’d be able to present the secret project much earlier – but we still haven’t. I pray that we make it before christmas, but honestly? I doubt it. Now, updates about the project are much easier to do when you can actually talk about it. I could show a screenshot of a function in action, of a section of a level, of a certain feature, etc. etc. Problem is, though – I can’t when the project still has to stay secret. So I have to come up with more and more general things or circumscribe everything. Thats basically the problem. I’m going to continue with these kind of posts, hoping that the project will be unveiled soon. I hope you do that too!

Thank you for your attention – keep checking back! And comment. Just imagine – reading a discussion in the comments! What a nice thought. You should tell your friends about this blog, so they come here and comment and contribute to the discussion and then, you should take their opinion and make counterpoints, so they have to comment again and then, you have to comment again and so on. In the end, your friendship may be destroyed, but there would have been lots of comments! So do it! Thats the spirit of christmas! The season of giving (comments)!

-E

The Daily Update for this week.

We are sorry.

We were experiencing some trouble with time managment, logging in or just being present (T/D/E), so this will be the post for this week. And I know I will get my working-over when Master E comes back, that’s for sure. :’(

So, what has happened this week? I can only speak for myself, so I’ll do. I worked on my level. I think I’ve hit the 50% mark already, but I still got mucho work to do. First off I will have to make many textures, and more geometry, which becomes pain-in-the-ass soon enough when doing everything in BSP geometry. Afterwards there’s the complete lighting to do, as well as polishing afterwards.

Lighting is really an interesting topic. Are there any reliable sources when it comes to level lighting? Of course, Team Phalanx offers great tutorials which I can only recommend to anyone interested in level design. But the whole internet seems to lack a website about lighting out a level. Some of the basic rules are known to me, but I can not say I’m a professional scene lighter. I’d be happy if someone could post a link or two in the comments section.

What more to say? Pretty much nothing, I suppose.

If you’re bored, you might want to check out the finalists of the 10th Annual Independent Games Festival over here, as there are really some exciting new game concepts to get hot about. Have fun!

-T

Blankets and Clowns. Also, trains.

Today, I modelled a blanket. This was the second time I did this. I did it for one bed before – that was the bed of a child, though. Now I did it for a different one.

The most awesome thing of this? The blanket for the child has little trains on it. Yeah, thats right. Trains. I love that. I first wanted to do clowns, but I didn’t for two reasons. One: Clowns are really pretty scary, just imagine seeing them all around you in the dark. Two: Trains are much, much easier to draw. Well, the simple version of trains, that is. You know, a few rectangles, two circles, thats it! It really looks kind of cute.

Oh, and its probably going to be fun to create the investigationtext for it. Feel free to post your ideas in the comments, so we can conveniently steal them. I mean, use them, if its okay with you. Yeah, thats more like it.

But really, it IS fun. Especially with all the options with the facial animations. I mean, just imagine it!

“Well, if that was the bed he had when he was nineteen, I suppose it’s possible to explain a lot. … Although, I do like the trains. They’re so a-do-rable.” … Meh, I’m not so funny today. Sorry. Just remember – next week, it’s all Turrican and maybe Dennis!

If you are really clever, you can try to figure out what that investigationtext means for the game.

-E

Balancing puzzle-difficulty

It’s surprisingly hard to think up good puzzles for games. The goal has to be clear – get into that room, make person x do y, try to reach item z. But often, its quite hard to even think of a way to incorporate puzzles into the scenario that you’ve created – at least that was the case for me. I had the outline of one chapter created – and then I sat there, wondering how to add puzzles into the mix. Thankfully, after a bit of brainstorming, ideas started to flow, and from there, it was all okay.

But then, it is not so easy. How many hints should be dropped? How clear does the goal really have to be – not the ultimate one, that is obvious, but rather the single steps to that. And then, the puzzles should become more difficult as the game goes on. It should start out easily enough – maybe just answering the correct thing in a dialog – but should need some serious thinking in the later parts. But puzzles are quite hard to balance – everyone thinks in different ways, with the result that some people find some kind of puzzles incredibly easy, while others will never figure it out, safe for random clicking. Thats bad. I don’t want people to get stuck.

So there is a hint system in place, that kind of smoothes it out. After a few minutes without progress, the maincharacter will tell you that he has an idea – and a button will appear on the screen. It’s your choice if you click it or not – if you do, the character will drop a hint. After a few more minutes, he’ll drop the next one, gradually becoming more and more clear in what you have to do. In the end, he may just plainly state it, or just keep that last, pretty obvious hint, depending on the puzzle. This ensures that everyone makes progress and no one gets stuck. I like it.

Oh, just a note – next week, updates may not come as often – sure, we’ve missed “daily” updates in the past, but I won’t be here with no access to the incredibly sum of knowledge, pictures of cats and other things otherwise known as the internet. So it’s all Turrican and maybe Dennis.

-E

Rewriting Dialogs

As we’ve already established by now, there is quite alot of talking and discussing to do in our game. In other words, there are plenty of dialogs. We already had a look at the editor and it sure makes my life easier. Simply put the text in there, write a few replies – there ‘ya go!

Well, I wish it were that easy. Unfortunately, thats not the case. While writing a sentence, I often already hate the sound of it and delete what I had so far for that snippet. There are lots of things to consider – how to write so that its easy to understand, yet it doesn’t sound super simple? Need to add a hint to the text? How to make it not too obvious? And then, every character is different – they say the same thing in different ways. Add to that the display of emotions through the facial animations (it helps to show cynism) and you can see that there are quite a lot of things to consider.

And then I have to read through the dialog ingame. Almost every single time, there is at least one mistake, save for the simplest of dialogs. Maybe I mixed up “}” for wating half a second and “{” for clearing the screen (probably my mistake in the first place for choosing so similar characters) – maybe there is a comma in the wrong place and the flow of the conversation likely won’t quite fit. So it’s back to the drawing board again. This happens quite often until I’m semi-happy with it, at which point I decide to keep it like that because otherwise I end up insane.

Then, after a bit of time has passed, I read the dialog again. And I don’t like it. And then, I rewrite it again. And again.

It also changes when you read the dialog for the millionth time. Sooner or later, you won’t be able to read that ill-constructed sentence again without hating it. And then, you change the dialog. Again.

There is one pretty simple dialog in the very beginning. That alone exists in at least 21 versions on my computer – and that are far from all versions (often, I simply overwrite the old file instead of creating a new one).

So what is the lesson from this? I can’t write well enough for my standards. It doesn’t help that I’m not a native speaker.

Rest assured that I hate all the sentences in this post!

-E