Monthly Archives: July 2012

Train2Game News: “Playing board games is fantastic training for game designers” – Creative Assembly lead designer

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Shogun 2 Total War

Game designers should play board games in to help improve their skills. That’s the view of The Creative Assembly lead designer James Russell, who was speaking about making the mechanics of Total War and game design at Develop Conference 2012.

“Playing board games is fantastic training for game designers,” he said. “Everything a player does is raw gameplay.”

It formed part of a wide ranging session in which the Total War lead designer discussed subjects ranging from the key game design pillars of Shogun 2: Total War, to how, ultimately every single video game is based around player choices.

“Gameplay is all about choices and trade-offs. Games present players with interesting decisions with pros and cons.” said Russell, adding that weak gameplay is generally down to weak design choices.

The session concluded with The Creative Assembly man showing off pre-Alpha footage of Rome 2: Total War for only the second time. The game is scheduled for release towards the end of 2013.

Keep reading The Train2Game Blog for the latest news from Develop Conference, while there’s more from The Creative Assembly here. That includes information about their recently released Shogun 2 map editor.

How important do you feel board games are for game designers? Are you a board game player?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game News: Free-to-play games take four years to reach peak revenue

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Free-to-play titles take four years before they reach their peak revenue from players. That’s what Managing Director of Reloaded – the studio behind APB Reloaded – Michael Boniface told the audience during his presentation at Develop Conference 2012.

The session, From Triple A To Free-To-Play examined the failures of Realtime World’s APB and what Reloaded did to bring the urban combat MMO back as a free-to-play game.  Boniface emphasised that “the most important thing for free-to-play is to be fun,” revealing how the development team regularly consult the community about aspects of APB Reloaded, which launched in December 2011.

And while blockbuster console titles make most of their revenue through day one sales, free-to-play games don’t maximise their revenue until four years after launch, said Boniface, as he discussed future plans for the MMO.

Free-to-play has has arguably been a success for APB Reloaded, with a user base of 647,000 players, compared with the 140,000 players achieved by the original, boxed version of APB Reloaded in 2010.

The Reloaded Managing Director described the process of going from triple A to free-to-play as the “most exciting, stressful, heartbreaking, rewarding experience of my life.”

Keep reading The Train2Game Blog for the latest news from Develop Conference, while there’s more on free-to-play here.

What are your thoughts on the idea a free-to-play title takes four years to reach peak revenue?

Leave your comments on The Train2Game Blog, or here on The Train2Game forum.

Train2Game News: “If you want to be successful, do something different” – Ian Livingstone

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To thrive in the games industry, you need to be a little different and preferably own your own IP. That’s according to Eidos Life President Ian Livingstone who was delivering his keynote at Develop Conference 2012.

“If you want to be successful, do something different, follow your heart” he said during his visionary session ‘From Dungeons to Downing Street – A Life in Games.’

The industry veteran discussed everything from founding Games Workshop, to Fighting Fantasy, to Tomb Raider. He also emphasised the importance for developers to control their own intellectual property.

“If you want real value, you need to create and own your own IP.” said Livingstone, later adding “If you can create your own IP, then do so.”

The games industry legend also told the audience how the three most important things in a game for him are gameplay, gameplay and gameplay. And as previously reported by The Train2Game Blog, Ian Livingstone believes “There’s never been a better time to run your own gig.”

Ian Livingstone was one of a number of industry figures who aided in mentoring Train2Game students taking part in Make Something Unreal Live earlier this year. The Games Workshop co-founder said he was “delighted” to be part of the initiative.

The Train2Game Blog will publish an interview with Ian Livingstone in the near future, but in the meantime, there’s more from the Eidos Life President here.

What are your thoughts on Livingstone’s comments? Do you agree that doing something different and owning your own IP are key to success?

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum

Train2Game Interview: Cheat Mode author and QA veteren Dan Jacobs – all three parts in one place

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Cheat Mode by Dan Jacobs is a recently released book about getting into and surviving the games industry. Written by an industry veteran, this book contains interviews with industry professionals who make games every day. From programmers to designers, journalists to community Managers, it offers advice from staff working at companies including BioWare, Codemasters, Rockstar and more.

The Train2Game Blog recently caught up with Cheat Mode author and experienced QA Tester Dan Jacobs to discuss his book, getting into the industry, what makes a good QA Tester and more in a huge interview which is spread out over three parts.

For the sake of convince, all three parts of our interview with Dan Jacobs can now see accessed in one place thanks to this blog post.  Be sure to read the whole thing for an excellent insight into the games industry.

Interview Part 1 – Inspiration for writing Cheat Mode, his involvement on the Train2Game forum, and how he broke into the games industry.

Interview Part 2 – Researching Cheat Mode, the importance of QA and its place in development.

Interview Part 3 – mistakes when QA testing, advice on becoming a tester, and the importance of networking.

Cheat Mode The definitive guide to getting into and surviving the games industry is out now and costs £10.99.

As usual, leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game Interview: DayZ creator Dean “Rocket” Hall on getting into the industry

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DayZ is the hugely popular zombie survival mod for Arma II. Produced by Arma II game designer Dean “Rocket” Hall in his spare time around full-time work at Bohemia Interactive, DayZ has demonstrated the huge potential of modding.

The Train2Game Blog sat down with the DayZ creator at Rezzed to discuss the advantages of modding, his unconventional path into the games industry and advice for those looking to get into game development. 

Tell us how you get started in the games industry. You haven’t taken a conventional route through it.

Yeah, it’s sort of a bit bizarre really. I left the New Zealand air force and did some odd project jobs, and then I decided that, as I was doing a lot of modding, that I wanted to get into the industry and I landed a job as an associate producer, working on console development for movie licensed games. Did that for a couple of years, didn’t really like the industry that much, particularly the console development style, and particularly for movie license stuff, so I quit and joined the army. After awhile, I decided I’d go back and have a look at Arma III.

Landing that first games job as associate producer, modding was a big part of it, they saw the community website I’d been running and the mods I’d been doing, and it was obviously a way to prove I was passionate and that I have a basic understanding of the technology. So I think that was a real benefit, approaching the industry from that angle.

So modding is a great way for aspiring game designers to show off their skills to potential employers?

Yeah, absolutely, definitely, and I think you can show your passion, that you can understand someone else’s code and stuff like that and get good familiarity.

Which toolsets do you use when modding?

3D Max. I guess when I was working as a producer I had the advantage of the project going well and having a lot of downtime. So I used that downtime to learn how to do art and how to do programming and all those kinds of aspects from my team leads, so that meant I ended up with a really good overview, I think if you want to be a good game designer, if you want to work in design, that’s the best way to approach it. Just learn as much as you can about all disciplines.

What other advice would you give to anyone looking to break into the games industry?

You need to be passionate and persistent, and I guess you need to have an idea of what you want to do, what are the areas of game development you really want to focus on? I think the best thing, particularly if you want to get into design, is understand how games are made. That means production, that means how much it costs to make games, that means the different aspects of it; how do you make 3D models? How are those rendered in games? What do programmers need to consider?

And I think the most important thing, even more than raw skills is social skills, you need to have social skills, you can’t just be good. If you’re very good it probably doesn’t matter, but if you’ve got social skills than you can be a real asset to the team.

Thanks for your time, Dean. 

Keep reading The Train2Game Blog for more on coverage from Rezzed, modding and advice from the pros on getting into the industry. 

Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Train2Game student Diaries of Jonny Robinson with some advice

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Jonny Robinson

After many hours of game development and laughter making My Sea Park, it’s now live on the app store. I’m just blown away with how fast it has shot up the UK app charts and it is getting nothing but praise on the reviews section.

It really has opened my eyes to a monetisation model as a whole, which is vital for me to know as a designer since as the gaming economy is changing exponentially.

Clive Robert (CEO of DR Studios) very kindly took out all the member of staff for a meal which was a great laugh. We were like kids at Christmas, just wondering how many downloads we would get and continuously hoping it will make it to the top. Well it’s in the top 25 downloads at the moment and it is still climbing just like the smile on my face.

I need to take my hat off to development DR team and Fuse for doing such a great job!

As a little bonus, this will look great on my portfolio! 😉

Until next time peace!

www.train2game.com

 Jonny Robinson 48

Another week another gigantic lesson learned. Doing what I do, I have to keep a lot of things close to my chest as I don’t want to be legally done by NDA or anything else of that matter. All I can say is that I went for a job interview for a position in the game industry. The person who interviewed me passed on some fantastic advice that I want to share with you as he is very experienced in what he does.

Anonymous game industry advice:

1) When you first walk into an interview; make sure you always introduce yourself, pass your CV to the interviewer (just in case) and tell them what position you are applying for.

2) Make sure before the interview you email the interviewer a link to your portfolio and CV; so they can do a little homework on you before the interview. This is so the interviewers are not focusing on the portfolio so much and instead are paying more attention to you, the interviewee.

3) Show passion if you are new to the industry, this will go a long way if you are less experienced as this will state that you are willing to go the whole nine yards and back to get the job done.

4) This last one is my own advice, if this is your first interview for a game industry position, say so. This may make you look less professional but it will give you some leeway as the interviewer knows you new to this whole experience.

This is just a snippet of information I’m willing to share with you, as we Train2Game members need to stick together and plus, I’m nice like that.

So how did my interview go? It went as well as it could have done, to be honest, but I have been asked to come back for another interview which is fantastic news.

So I hope this information helps you as much as it helped me.

There is so much more that I could talk about, but I will leave that one for my next diary, so stay tuned.

Until then… peace!

www.train2game.com

Train2Game student Diaries of Ben Stoneman May to June

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18/05/12
This week the game had changed quite a bit in regards to movement and controls, at the moment we are not near getting a build done and there are still many design issues to consider. I have been finding that a lot of design issues are hard to understand by other team members. They find it hard to see how some of my requests make the game better for the player in terms of gameplay and control. We also needed to begin work on the enemy, however the artist had no idea where to start and frankly came across as not being very excited about learning. I worried this would take too long, so i decided to begin learning how to model, rig and animate in 3ds Max.

25/05/12
This week I have been working on the developer diary for the Asset bundles project. I have been happy to hear feedback from others in regards to the diary, It has given me insight into how they understand the document and has allowed me to make changes that ensure that all can understand and enjoy reading it. One thing that I have found hard whilst doing the developer diary is understanding the problems the coder has faced when working on the game mechanics, also why they decided to program a mechanic a certain way and a lot of other things concerning the programming side of the development.

01/06/12
This week we have tried to get as much of the important art assets for the game finished before our artist goes on holiday for two weeks. The artist had been on cases all day most days, however on the Friday i pushed him to get the essential art assets completed. The art assets had been modelled and UV unwrapped, however the textures still needed to be made and the models need to be imported into the project. the rest of the week has been basically getting the support cases done and giving a personal touch to each of the 9 rooms in the game, including lighting and scenery.

08/06/12
This week was quite short, however I did volunteer to work the Monday and Tuesday, which were bank holidays. I came into an empty office on Monday and got straight onto the cases there were a lot of cases and they were all for me to complete. I did not find it daunting at all, in fact i knew exactly how I was going to go about getting it done. so I began to plough through all of the simple activation cases. On the Tuesday I decided to work from home, I was now past the activation cases and onto the asset store related content. Usually I do not get many asset store cases when working with Rob and James so i did find it quite difficult to answer certain issues. I was advised to say to the customers with issues i needed help solving, that we have limited staff due to the diamond jubilee weekend and the issue will be dealt with asap. the rest of the week was recovering from the hardcore case work over the two bank holidays, however i found i had learnt alot about the asset store cases and how to solve them.

15/06/12
We had our latest build done today, after we tested the build and saw it was working like a basic beta version, we began setting up a presentation. Unfortunately we were unable to link the iPad to the projector, so therefore we decided to go around the office allowing others to test the game and give us their feed back. All my life i have valued feedback, ever since my primary school teacher said “ask your friends what they think”. The feedback we got for those who tested it brought up good points and most gave us a solution. The rest of the week has been mostly cases and polishing the game
ready for the Friday build.

www.train2game.com

Train2Game student Diaries James Bouckley week 15 and 16

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Week 15

This week we discussed targets for the game.  When should it be finished by and when would we have a demo ready.  We tried to have a demo ready by Friday but unfortunately we failed.  Despite the game being interesting and very fun to develop, the support cases have to come first and a surprising abundance of them this week and Rob still being on holiday meant we just didn’t have enough time to work on it.  It came as a bit of surprise to me this week when I discovered we needed desktop controls because the game was going to be multi-platform and the dual-joystick imitation controls for keyboard I had made (purely for testing purposes), weren’t going to cut it.  After a bit of stressful week, I have to admit that being told this didn’t find me well.  Ben spent some time going around the office with the iOS version of the game, which was finished, getting as many opinions as possible so we could polish the demo.  Meanwhile I struggled to finish the PC controls and failed.  Not a great week in all, but still a fair margin better than any week I’ve ever had in any other job… ever.

Week 16

Unity 4.0 has been announced!  It was announced this Monday and boy does that make for a lot of support cases!  Rob is now back with us and good job too because I think without him Ben and I would have struggled.  This again meant another week with not as much work done on the game as I would have liked.  The desktop controls are finished now, but buggy and I’m not happy with them.  Also, one of the major things that people noted about the game when Ben showed them last Friday was that they didn’t like the linear mapping between finger-joystick position and player speed.  What that means is that there is linear dependence between the distance of your finger and the centre of the joystick and the speed the player moves at.  People would have preferred a relationship that meant when you’re near the centre you move slower but then you accelerate faster as you move further away.  When I heard this my reaction was “Okay, that’s doable but it’s going to be expensive.  We’ll have to do a square-root operation every frame.”  God bless Unity though because they have already thought about it.  Mark showed me how to sample a curve and apply it to a script and the iOS controls are now far more user-friendly.  Another thing that came up is what happens when the player moves behind something.  Currently we have a shader that highlights the player so you can still see him.  This however sometimes makes it look like the player is on top of the object instead of behind it.  So instead I have started to implement a script that will make the objects see-through instead of the player being highlighted.  I was having some difficulty with this and with some help from Cat, we nearly got their.  I’m confident I can finish this myself early next week.

www.train2game.com

Train2Game Student Diary Ezekiel Morris Weeks 6 and 7

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Week 6

Well this week has been awesome so far facial expression are working in unity now so I’m glad about that , three weeks  struggling to get this face expression working but as a student I haven’t had experience on flat facial animation before so  it was Difficult  to solve this  issue.  I needed some guidance so Ben, a student at train2game took a look at this flat facial animation problem and got it working in unity 3d.

Next stage working on another character, creating textures but keeping the same model but still I’m not satisfied how my first character textures are looking, when I’m doing concept art I make sure you have a good understanding of the concept, for example how big it is, what is it wearing a reference image of my character once I’m clear on the design of the character I can prepare texturing the character.

I feel that this is just a work in progress on development but still we got a working function game it just needs some cleaning up so things are pitting up and also  I like the workflow I’m doing now,  you just feel that you know what you doing without thinking about it.

Oh yes we have a new environment artist joining the DR studios.

Ezekiel Morris week 7

This week DR studios had a launch party to celebrate their new release – my sea park, I’m happy to say my sea park is doing well  and  I’m happy to say I did collaborate on the project as well .

On my sea park I did the penguin and the seal sketch and then Matty helped clean up  the sketches. When I started at DR Studios I was working on another project and I was told  to help on my sea park  for  bit. After finishing  the sketches for my sea park  I when back to my original project .It was a nice day and a nice lunch out with my associates, the place we went was called red hot world buffet the food was excellent but I couldn’t eat anymore I was full.

We all went back to DR studios, I was food drunk, now I’m on another project and my task  is to model this character in three days but it’s going to be a  video render with a pink or white  background, then I’m gonna put a camera in the scene so that it  goes around the character when it’s  being rendered.

So I started off doing a model sheet of the character head but I wasn’t sure if I should sculpt the character or model it in 3d max but gonna model it straight in 3d max.

 www.train2game.com

Train2game Student Diary Craig Moore – What an incredibly exciting week it has been!

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Craig Moore – What an incredibly exciting week it has been!

Student Diary , Week 30

Unleashed on to the world like a penguin in a paddling pool! My Sea Park hit the unsuspecting world head on yesterday and it’s been an incredible experience, and this was only day one!

We had already seen the beginnings of the social media pushes, by our publishers, earlier in the day but it wasn’t until we got word of My Sea Park creeping in to the charts that things really got exciting. There was the hope it was doing well but the visibility wasn’t really available.

That was until around 5pm, while we were in the meeting with the publisher we heard word it had crept in to the top 50! Of course everyone became very excited, but by the end of the meeting it had already, again, crept in to around 37!

Of course this continued throughout the day, admittedly it wasn’t the most productive of days but it was a really lovely reward for all the hard work.  Of course, being a free title, there is now the hope it will actually monetise well.

That was pretty much the key moment of the week, the rest of my week has been spent illustrating and working on the concept document for the next title, which is going incredibly well. I am waiting on feedback from a few of the other guys here, but fingers crossed it will get some approval; It’s a really exciting project!

-Craig

www.train2game.com

Craig Moore

Student Diary – Week 31

What an incredibly exciting week it has been!

Suffice to say, with My Sea Park being released, the entire office were glued to iTunes watching our brand new game slowly work its way around the charts.

It was great watching it go up and down, and really muscling with the big boys, I got in to the habit of checking it with a stupid regularity, but seeing it in the same space as games like Angry Birds, Infinity Blade and Temple Run was such an amazing feat I can’t help but feel proud.

I think everyone in the office is pleased with how it has done, but the fun isn’t even over yet! With version 1.2 of My Sea Park put into submission last week we are hoping for the first update to drop either today or Monday. With that we should hopefully see a load more faces in the door, as well as hopefully some of the older ones who perhaps didn’t get chance to play as much as they would like or simply didn’t give it a good enough try.

I think it does highlight how competitive the market is at the moment, particularly for My Sea Park’s genre. We have to simply keep working on it, while also working on the next project, to ensure it stays fresh for customers both new and old.

This week I have been getting deep with Unity, finding my way around it and putting time into learning the way the UI systems work, it’s been a great learning experience and so far and I’m finding Unity incredibly pleasing to work with.

-Craig

www.train2game.com