Play A Role In QA

Well its been five months and I've been busy.  Well not busy depending on how you look at it.  But I thought I'd take the time to talk a bit about QA.  Seems like an odd topic for someone who designs games but I had an itch that needed scratching.

Not many people would ever want to work in QA as one of gaming's so called Umpa Lumpas of the trade.  Often disregarded as a mere tool to find bugs these 'lower class' workers often toil around simple 'see if all my feature works' efforts.  This means testing all the possible mindless tasks that a user would go through.  I can't imagine a worse job for a creative person then putting them to work on a virtual 'to do' list.  I'm not saying that people working in qa are automatons by any means.  The small measure of creativity they control comes from the exotic conditions they can find glitch's in but that level of freedom is quickly stomped when given harsh deadlines for unrewarding en-devours.  At a certain point its impossible for someone to care about how well a machine works when their influence on its creation is so limited.  So producers are left with testers that strive to work in harsh creative conditions on a product that they have limited investment in.  How can we change this?

The strategy could be as simple as let the testers have an outlet for their creative ideas.  Even a small scrum once a month can go a long way towards letting the testers feel more appreciated.  No one, and I mean no one, will spend as much time with the functionality of the client as the testers will.    What I suggest is that quality control play a more integral role in developers schedule's and act as a literal user that can ask 'why the hell did you put that cover so fuckin far away?'  Just the face to face confrontation of an actual user can change how the developer can see something.  One step further is to have a select few testers placed in on meetings where they can hear devs talk about implantation and gather a larger sense of how the development will go.

Once a tester is more implemented within a team the process could go even further to include testers as integral members of the team that act as constant supervisors to the creative devs who actually produce the products.  Devs in turn can talk through decisions with their testing counterparts to better understand why something was unliked.  In essence this change would be treating testers as students and teaching them face to face about decisions as to the 'why' and 'what' that goes into making games.  This would not only make for better games but for a more cohesive team.  More often then not development teams for games will include the same people and this added communication would make writing bugs for a dev more transparent.  This idea is basically asking for more accountability from developers and a higher level of design competence from testers.  If you want your testers to care about the quality part of QA then you need to get them invested in early so they can work together to create a much higher quality product.

To conclude this I believe that a more educated tester can achieve a greater output for the company.  The feedback of someone, even bad feedback, can cause a creator to defend the 'why' of his design.  Once a better understanding of why a feature is put into a game you will know exactly how important it is to the final product.  This is a great way to make better games that are more accountable to a schedule since features are constantly called into question.  And if a feature is staying this dialog will ensure a dev knows exactly what a general audience will think of its performance.

Where did all the strategy go?

Recently I was playing a game of Splinter Cell Conviction with a buddy of mine.  We ran around the map as mighty kings killing the helpless pions below with our unstoppable proximity mines and assult rifles.  The game played more like freekin godzilla crushing the puny american army then the tactical shooter it claimed to be.  This is a far cry from the original Splinter Cell where you where given a short stick and told to take out the fortress of doom.  So what happened?  Where did the stealth elements go?

So that a bunch of three green eyed ninjas don't bust a shurdican all up in here I'm just going to say that this isent saying Conviction is a bad game.  Far from it.  However it has drifted from its roots and I'm wondering why.  Well the answer is simple but the design desitions arn't.  The game was changed because of growing demand for more up-tempo gameplay.  Audiences say 'hey, that was fun but I want more action' and instead of improving the base mechanics of the game we find new mechanics to replace proven working ones.  This becomes agrivating to fans of the series when we have to ask 'I wonder what kind of game I'll be playing next.'  I'm not saying things can't be changed or play it safe UbiSoft but a little familiarity can go a long way.

I'll give an example.  In Splinter Cell you had movement control that tied brilliantly into the game.  On PC that ment you would scroll up or down to move faster or slower in your perspective crouch or stand.  This tied in so well since what you where walking on would make more or less noise depending on how fast you where moving.   If you where running across gravel enemies would be alerted to your position and since you didn't possess the power of Thor you'd enter panic mode.  In Conviction, short of sprinting, standing in front of enemies like a confused elderly person, or running around the map flailing your arms screaming 'come get me coppers,' you would not be detected.  Period.  There was very few times where I felt unsure of my survival odds and I never asked myself 'can I actually get past this?'  This change made the game easier to grasp and took less patiences to progress through.  In the end I'm not sure if thats a good thing since the game was never really ment to be easy.  It's a stealth game after all and the rewards of not being seen in a challenging enviorment are tremendous. At its root, these changes were made to make the game more sell-able and not more enjoyable to the target audience.  To encompass a larger variety of gamers Conviction panders to people who don't know how to remain hidden by making detection a hard feat to accomplish and losses the original core of Splinter Cell in the process.

I can't say I didn't enjoy Conviction nor the mechanics it owns but ultimately the game defeats itself.  Conviction has some sort of identity crisis that claims its a stealth game akin to thief or at least the original splinter cell but in the end your just Marcus Fenix with a smaller gun.  Conviction lacked the one thing that Splinter Cell had.  Fear.  The 'oh fuck I'm so screwed' moment only happened as you waited for animations of Sam Fisher to punch the daylights out of some dude.  I for one miss the older and more challenging game where timing and position where more important than just trigger happy reflex's as you exsiqute entire rooms filled with bad guys.  It takes the fun out of picking off a bunch of clueless bad guys without being seen.  If for some reason a UbiSoft employee reads this than I implore you to return Sam to his roots.  A health bar and a fear of corners.

A short game design idea (rough)

Every moment is now gone.  Each person stuck in the same point.  Except this man.  He walks alone in a city frozen in time.  He travels around the city happily observing the constant sun, the cheerful people.  He writes into his notebook noting all these moments.  Some are insignificant.  Some will be forever remembered.  Everything is kept into a journal and he takes down the time with his pocket watch.

As the days progresses subtle things start to change.  Smiles seem to disappear even in places they shouldn’t.  Day begins to turn to night.  Clouds form in the distance.  Over time our hero grows impatient.  He wants to know what is happening.  He checks his pocket watch.  It still remains unchanged.  Frozen like the people surrounding him.

Now he begins to notice that people are missing.  On grueling discovery has him find a man formarly pointing out a bird to his daughter now standing alone with his hand chewed off.  An old man on a couch has now been half eaten.  The married couple is now only a single woman standing outside a church.  Even his pocket watches time has changed.

Our hero is now confused and seeks to discover what is going on.  He returns to his time machine.  Pictures of these happy moments are now as twisted as they remain.  Scared he begins to inspect these pictures.  They all seem to be looking in a direction.  Towards the clock tower. 

Our hero sets out towards this tower in search of some truth.  He goes towards the great clock and enters a coffee shop at its base.  Its resedents frozen but all remain unharmed.  A man uncomfortably frozen spilling hot coffee on the floor.  The light is dimmer here so he turns on his flashlight.  As he does a frozen statuesque monster appears infront of him.  Afraid he points the light at it.  Screaming the monster runs away knocking over frozen people as he goes.

Our hero must escape.  He must run.  His only tool is his flashlight.  The monsters seem to be afraid of it.  He returns to his hideout but his machine now lays in ruins.  Scribbles on the wall are the words “its not yours”  and “give it back.”  Plastic maniquines all pointing at the door watches covering their bodies.

Frightened he begins to pack his bags.  He grabs things that emit light and leaves.  But upon exiting he sees that it is now raining outside.  There is no one on the streets and everything is cold.  Our hero journeys into the city avoiding the darkeness.  This demon stalks him.  He avoids its grasp.

As he walks along a cold store the tvs turn on.  They becon him into the store.  The tv’s proclaim they are watching our hero.  His every move.  They have seen him once before.  They all them him that he must return time to its previous state.  They claim the growth of the great tree depends on it.  Even a single vein in a leaf is important.  He must resume time.  They become frightened when he pulls out his pocket watch.  Its arms now retreating as if going back in time.  Our hero proclaims he knows where an old machine is.

This dark entity follows our hero to the clock tower.  He travels through the library and into a small corridor.  There in a long and murky hallway he is forced to fight the demon.  The demon proclaims “I WANT MY WATCH BACK!”  At the end of the battle he stands over it, laying there covered in tar, it speaks to him.  “I have seen it” says the putrid beast “I have seen the base where all things lie.”  Black liquid flows down its face “I went mad u see, mad at how small I was.”  Skin now reveiled under the dark layer of sludge.  “I have seen the seeds that sewed reality, the birth of every universe on every plane of exsistance.”  Blood now poured out of his nose.  His eyes wide with fear.  “How small I’ve become.”  A dead man now lies at our heroes feet grasping onto a small chain.  The hero reaches down and removes the object.  Its metal case seems untouched by the grease.  Holding it up to his face our hero inspects the device.  His eyes widen.  Fear grips the man and as if guided by some unknown force he lifts his hands up clicking the button that protrudes out of the top.  Its metal casket opens and the tick tick tick of a pocket watch fills the room.  Our hero lay dead on the floor covered in tar.  The monster holding his pocket watch moves away to open the door at the end of the hall.

Inside the room a small device, no bigger than a house cat lies on the only table in the empty green room.  Setting aside his two identical pocket watches the man stares out of the window.  His eyes now filled with tears as rain pours against the glass.  The small device on the table unaware of the mans cries as he pushes the button on the device. 

A man points out a bird to his daughter.  Another eats alone on his couch.  Someone spills hot coffee on the floor.  A couple walks down the stairs of a church avoiding the happy rice as it falls from the sky.  And a solom man stands alone in a room and cries.  Cries for the life he took.  Cries for a pocket watch he stole.  Cries for his own death.

Alternatives to competitive Design

Since the first pixels left their hard drives set on a wonderous journey to explore the deep recess of imagination they were of course confronted by lasor fire seconds after creation and sent back to the hard drive they were formed in.  This has been the standard for video games for the last 50 years or so.  In fact the first interactive game had you shooting missiles.  So why are we always intent on killing each other in video games, which are by all means, an equivalent to literature?  It seems that the only thing games have really done in the past  is put the player in a world, give him/her a stick and tell them to go forth and conquer.  It's a shame since games seem to have great potential because of their interactive elements.  Elements that could potentially be used to create a player driven story deriving character traits from the player themselves.  This has been done to some extent in games like Mass Effect but then they just send you and your gun on your way.  A few games have given the player a non-violent alternative but still follow a liniar plotline.  So what gives?  Why the violent nature in our vast repiture of games considering the source, boardgames, are so subjective and non-violent?

But a few games seem to be bucking this trend with new story driven elements.  In these games the player may be given an image.  Something subjective that the player assigns meaning to.  At this point the game is no longer pass fail and becomes more about the expeirence.  Since a persons view of things can't really be called better or worst than the competitive nature of games is gone and a more opinion based veiw takes its place.  This view is common in most modern entertainment (save sports which has a purely pass fail attitude [fan opinions aside]) and gives the audience a magic circle.  Of course sports have a magic circle, ball goes in net, team scores point.  But beyond believing that a ball going into a net has any subsequent value the magic circle is limited to the rules of the game.  Imagery games take the opposite perspective by taking away the competitive nature.  They let the player make their own story about events.  This gives way to alternating opinions about events and can be resonably assumed that this subjective view changes based on each persons perspective.  By any sence these games are a form of art as well as function.  

So imagery based games are more based in art.  A few games have challenged preconceptions about imagery based progression.  Like the ones listed above but one game has taken this tecnique to a more practical level.  In the past imagrey has been used to enhance the impact of the story.  One example was Modern Warefare 2's use of imagery (SPOILERS) when the characters ghost and roach were burned alive.  This image became more powerful by taking control away from the player (rarely done in this game) and presented them with a powerful image of those two characters being burned alive.  The player losses nothing in this but is affected by the image.  A scenceless addition to mechanics but without this scene the game would have lost impact.  MoW2's success was not the result of this scene but it does prove that even mainstream games are taking this practice into consideration.  Other games are starting to join in by making imagery the soul of their gameplay, Half Life 2 mod 'Handle with care' for instance.  This game has the player confront their characters phycological issues by confronting them with images contained in fragile box.  The player then assigns meaning to these images and the story unfolds.  Games are starting to rely less on objectives pushed by mechanics and more on players perception of events to tell the story.  This more modern day progression means that complexity in story is now being derived from more than just mechanics.  Modern day imagery seems to be another interactive story progression tool that appears here to stay.

More unfinished stuff

Mistreatment of Villain’s

I call on all of you reading this post to think back to your favorite villain in a video game.  It can be the main boss in series or just a bad guy you really liked.  What do you remember?  More specifically what is the first thing about them that pops into your mind?  If your like me you had trouble with this question as well.  For some reason beyond my comprehension I thought of G-Man from Half Life.  It’s an odd choice as you nether fight him and he never really proves that he is a bad guy (apart from forcing you to work for him).  This all got me thinking about what makes a great super villain.  In comics the bad guys tend to be way more interesting than the good guys.  So what gives, surely video games have just as good villains as comic books or movies right?  Well Firstly I think I should clarify what makes a good villain.

Powerful social characters.  In order to fight the hero a villain needs to be driven or they risk becoming stagnant and unmoving.  Often the villain will be someone with flawed moral ideals.  In many classic stories the villain is someone who seeks to solve problems.  Lex Luther (my favorite villain) only seeks to return the balance of power from Superman.  His flaw is his ego that requires him to defeat the only person he is unwilling to admit is better than him.  But as a character he battles a god and that makes him a powerfully driven character.  Anyone can just quit but Luther will always try to best Superman even tho the odds are stalked so great against him.  Often this means that the villain will be unwilling to comprimiese seeing their solution as the only viable response.  This can be great since everyone hates an inflexible response like ‘for the good of the many we must sacrifice a few.’  These characters demand respect and in video games their underlings should represent that by the way they act in their world.

Mystirious motivations.  If a villains answer to ‘why are you attacking new york’ is ‘I don’t like new york’ than said villain is lacking in depth.  A two demensial villain is easy to figure out the modivations of and this means that a great deal of discovery is thrown away from the player.  If the villain never reveils his true intentions than people remain guessing.  However Villains should be more than ‘evil.’  For something like Lord of the Rings, Mordor wasent the real Villain.  It was the hearts of man that could undo the world.  This was depicted by Boromir and Denethor because these men gave into their temtations of fear.  Of course Mordors motivations were transparent but man’s motivations (namely Boromir) were in question.  This was a great way to use characters with flaws to be villains as Boromirs want for his fathers pride was used to try and take the ring from Frodo.  These complex characters can also be admirable to some degree but thought about with suspicion since their true motivation remains a secret.

Character context inside his/her/it’s world.  A villain can be just another person without the tools they possess that give them strength.  These tools are specific to the setting of the world.  If the ultamite villain in a skate boarding game can’t skate than they are lacking characters context inside they’re world.  A villain’s tools define them and they should be well equip for the world(s) they reside in.  If the focus is about shooting than a villain should know how to shoot.  Power is granted to those who control their surroundings and a villain who doesn’t is just not that scary.

Villain intelligence.  Hopefully the main bad guy your trying to defeat isn’t as slow as his hired goons.  The villain should hold some command over the people in their world.  They must have influence and the ability to bring about change.  Villains who don’t remain uninteresting since they have nothing to lose.  For example if a hero must kill an evil tyrant that tyrant should have some element that could affect the heros life.  For a boring villain that element would be an army that could crush said heroes village but to spice it up maybe they have done this to hundreds of villages in an attempt to stop a plague from killing more.  The villain uses his intelligence to solve a problem inside the world and the story follows by reveling that solutions effects to the hero.

Finnially a faital flaw.  This one is important because villains don’t get points for being perfect.  If they were heroes would just lose and that’s no fun.  Good guys should be the rock to their scissors.  That shouldn’t be confused with a simple game of rock paper scissors though as the hero shouldn’t find it that easy to defeat the villain.  Great villains are so powerful they can stand beaten but still in charge meaning that the villain should be all to aware of his fatil flaw.  Its no fun when you win with those nanites the good doctor gave you three seconds ago but if a hero wins by removing a villains true power you’ve accomplished something.  At the end a great villain leaves heroes with a hard choice.  A moral dilemma that reveals as much about the hero as it does about the moral of the story.

So that was a sort of wish list for villains these days.  Generally those principles can be applied to anything villains are involved in but specific to video games the list changes a little.  Since video games are user dependent they offer different challenges and opportunities for the developer.  When you think of a villain in a game a lot of these motivations for good villains ring true but how does that translate to a gameplay standpoint on villains?

Un finished

This is a blank page.  I cannot think about what to put here in regards to video games.  It's also not finished

I have a bit of a quib with video games right now.  We've all played games in the past.  Some of them were casual games that a rock could figure out.  Some of them were hardcore games that upon mention would instantly create a social migraine that even obi wan couldn't master.  Even the occasional guilty pleasure that we'd play while locked in our rooms for fear of social ridicule.  But at the end of each game all we have is a memory.  Just the remaining thoughts from what we found the best or worst in that game.  So if each game is just a memory than what did we remember?  For movies it is usually a big wow moment.  An explosion of awsomeness harnessed into a few frames.  Those wow moments in games can come from boss.'  Those boss' come from a main villian.  And thats where my issue comes from because the villian, almost without fail, is always a two demension character about as predictable as a macdonalds menu.  

Of course thats not to say there havent been some great game villians.  They have some levels of diversity that set them apart.  For instance bowser from Mario was a great villian not because he was intimidating but agrivating.  He was a bully.  He taunted the player along their path just being a menace.  But thats predictable and I'm arguing agasint that right?  Well mario was made to fit all audiences which means kids would play it.  A villian to a kid isent a man you can't see on a chair who really likes cats with that button that opens every trap door in the room.  To a kid a villian is a bully, a kid that picks on them taking things away.  Mainly lunch money but this all to say that villians get their power from context.  Meaning if bowser was replaced with say... Joker from batmans arkym asilym then kids would be not only trumatized by a madman but beatten by gumbas with ak47s.  This would make a game that didn't sell very well and may end up in the bad section of video game memories.  The point I'm trying to make here is that the villian, an integreal part of most story based video games, needs to fit the style of the video game its in.  A common mistate that many games make is not adhearing to the who the villian is intended for.

Game villians try to intimidate you and that just ends up not being scary.  Movies have a formula for this called the heros journey and that structure is the beginning for all of the big classics we see on screen.  Of course that formula has been rearranged and toyed with to some success but the basic layout is usually the same.  A lot of entertainment in movies comes from seeing what the characters do and most tension comes from the mistakes they make.  Now when this stucture is used in a video game it is missing a key component.  Change.  The character is supposto have a change in the heros journey but that isent really possible when a real person is playing.  One could argue that games use this all the time but in reality its usually a cinimatic or scripted event the player is pigon holed into.  This pushs the player out of the game and forces issues they couldent avoid.  This is bound to happen in every game but when its done right the player feels trapped, not restricted.  Trapped in the sence that the player has only one clear path to victory and anything outside of it has been blocked by the villain.

Great villains come from their felt presence inside the world.  Not on a physical scale since every game and it's sequal has smashed rocks all over the place but the mental state places are left in.  What are the survivors, if any, doing?  Sometimes a great moment can come from the unexpected.  After a gun fight people won't be sitting around a table having tea they'll be running around in panic.  If a character meets the villain how will he respond?  Sometimes sutlety can go a long way.  It might be strange to know that everyone actually loves the villain and he's considered a hero in town.  Of course what you usually hear is 'oh he's so bad!  stop him by turning off that switch in that base over on that hill.'  Villians should be guiding the player, not the levels the player is stuck in.  By this I mean that either your chasing the villain or he's chasing you.

Input comes from the player and they diside if the player changes or not.  So this fomula cannot change and the player simply moves from interesting level to interesting level without any sort of impactful presence.  Nothing is standing in the way of the player except a restart checkpoint button and their interest in the game.  So of course nothing lost nothing gained.  In fact only a handful of games actually use death of the character as an optional plot progression point (namely Heavy Rain) 

A new Updated blog for my new updated site!

So if your reading this than you've reached my blog.  However you got here be it my portfolio or a time space warp, welcome.  Here I'll be talking about the things that I'm up to regarding video games and what I happen to be working on (provided that an NDA does not prevent me from doing so by threat of furious furious nerd wraith).  Regardless I'll try to make an effort to update this now and then with some interesting thoughts at least.  I hope you find it interesting.

So I should say a little about myself to start.  As you (hopefully know) my name is James Morgan.  I'm padawan game designer learning the ropes of a digital frontier.  Guess thats a fancy way of saying I'm still learning.  I'll be writing a few articles here but keep in mind that I'm still learning as I go so feel free to comment and correct any mistakes I've made.  Please keep in mind that some of these articles are opinionated so try to be nice with the comments.