Category Archives: Games Designer

Train2Game News: “I really enjoy making games, it’s just fun” – Sid Meier

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Even after 30 years in the games industry, Civilization creator and Firaxis co-founder Sid Meier still has fun making “very cool” things.

“I really enjoy making games, it’s just fun. It’s like taking a lumpy piece of clay and turning it into something very cool. Every day is part of that process. Not knowing exactly where we are going and figuring it out step by step is just a challenge. It’s almost like the “one more turn” phenomenon in Civilization.” the games industry veteran told GamesIndustry.biz, adding that the element of surprise is something he’s very fond of.

“ It’s looking to that next thing we are going to add to the game and seeing how we can just make it better. The fun for me is really not knowing from week to week what cool thing we are going to add and getting a chance to play with it and tweak it and the constant process of seeing a game grow before your eyes.” said Meier.

His enthusiasm for developing games after so long is sure to be an inspiration to Train2Game students.

Earlier this week, The Train2Game Blog reported that Meier believes the first 15 minutes are key to enjoyable game design.

Meier’s Firaxis Games are currently working on a reimagining of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and there’s more about the studio here on The Train2Game Blog.

Is the fact that Meier is still so enthusiastic about creating games after 30 years encouraging for you?

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

Train2Game News: First 15 minutes “key” to game design says Civilization creator Sid Meier

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The first fifteen minutes of a video game being enjoyable is one of the key rules of game design. That’s according to veteran game designer Sid Meier, the man behind the Civilization and the founder of Firaxis Games.

“One of the key rules of game design is the first 15 minutes. These introductory minutes have to be fun, satisfying, and exciting. You are letting players know they’re on the right track, you should reward them, and let them know cool stuff will happen later.” Meier told GamesIndustry.biz, before admitting mistakes with this when it came to his early games.

“In early Civilization games, I made Civ real-time, which meant everything happened in real-time: My first mistake was to make it real time.” he said.

“I modelled some elements of the game from SimCity, which was real-time. It was inspiring. But what we found was that in real-time gaming the player becomes the observer. Our mantra is that, “it’s good to be king.”

“When we made Civ a turn-based game, the player became the star, they made things happen.” Meier added.

The full GI.biz interview with Sid Meier on game design, his career and the industry as a whole is here.

As previously reported by Train2Game, the Civilization creator believes there are more opportunities than ever to be a game developer.

Meier’s Firaxis Games are currently working on a reimagining of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and there’s more about the studio here on The Train2Game Blog.

Do you agree with Sid Meier that the first fifteen minutes are a key part of game design? What games gave you the most memorable first quarter of an hour?

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

Train2Game News: United Front on the vast research behind Sleeping Dogs

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Game designers researching Sleeping Dogs at United Front Games have done so by taking newspaper cuttings, looking at films and taking 40,000 reference photos of Hong Kong.

“We took 35,000 to 40,000 reference photos and hour upon hour of video footage, but it’s not a street for street depiction. It was important for us to capture the essence of city. Lots of the landmarks are there, many of the names are similar yet, first and foremost, we wanted to make that space fun to navigate around.”  Executive producer Stephen van der Mescht told PlayStation Blog.

The United Front Games man went on to discuss how important it is for them to show the life of an undercover cop to Sleeping Dogs players.

“Well, the plot was built from scratch but we were heavily influenced by a lot of references. Look at movies like The Departed and Donnie Brasco – they both had an element of truth in them, which came from the stories they discovered by talking to people who were actually in those situations.” he continued.

“The important thing for us to get across was that dual world of a cop pretending to be a gangster, and the stresses that come with that, of having to live this lie.” van der Mescht continued, adding that while the plot of Sleeping Dogs, it’s influenced by a lot of their research.

“In terms of specifics, we referenced a lot of Triad crimes using newspaper cuttings. The game follows this guy becoming more intertwined with this world and we see his morality line get blurred. So yes, there are direct references to stories we discovered from the research we did.” said the executive producer.

Read the full interview, Sleeping Dogs And Telling Stories Through Games over at the PlayStation Blog. It’s likely to be interesting reading for anyone on a Train2Game course, especially game designers.

There’s more about Sleeping Dogs here on The Train2Game Blog, while you can also keep reading for the latest news from its publisher, Square Enix, here.

What are your thoughts on the research United Front are putting into Sleeping Dogs?

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

Train2Game News: Frozen Synapse dev blogs about ‘How to Be an Indie Game Developer’

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Frozen Synapse by Mode 7 Games is published through Steam

‘How do I become an indie game developer?’ is a question that’s often asked to industry professionals, so Mode 7’s Paul Taylor has attempted to answer that very query in a in a lengthy, but very interesting blog post.

Mode 7 Games is the Oxford indie game development studio behind PC tactical strategy title Frozen Synapse.

The ‘How to be an indie game developer’ blog post should make fascinating reading for any Train2Game student, as it discusses almost all areas of development and marketing. Subjects covered by Taylor include game design, concept, code, art and animation, music and audio, writing, business and marketing, free-to-play vs. pay once and even using videos.  Be sure to give it a read.

Taylor has previously written about what he thinks made Frozen Synapse a success, and there’s more about the indie title here on The Train2Game Blog.

Be sure to keep reading for advice from games industry professionals on how you can break into development.

What are your thoughts on the blog post from Mode 7? Do you have aspirations to be an indie developer and if so, what steps have you made towards it?

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

Train2Game News: BioWare senior writer Jennifer Hepler on getting into the industry

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Dragon Age 2 Train2Game

Aspiring game designers looking to break into the industry should work on tabletop roleplaying games in order to learn about writing. That’s according to BioWare senior writer Jennifer Hepler who wrote plots for Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic.

“If you don’t have a pressing need to make money, do a little time working for tabletop roleplaying games. It’s fairly easy to break in, because they pay peanuts, but you learn a ton about game design from working with dice systems.” she told the BioWare Blog, adding that it looks good when applying for jobs in the games industry.

“And since most videogame designers (certainly of RPGs) are huge tabletop game geeks, it’s a great credit to have when applying for jobs. Most people in the tabletop field end up drifting into videogames eventually, since you can live on what they pay you, so you’ll also make contacts who can end up being helpful down the line.” said the Dragon Age writer.

Hepler also described how she and her husband – Mass Effect writer Chris Hepler – broke into the games industry and even had a stint in Hollywood.

“My entry into games came in college when I met my now-husband and was introduced to Vampire and Shadowrun.” she said.

“Having spent my high school years writing and trying to sell short stories, I immediately thought about trying to do some professional writing for RPGs, and by the time we graduated college, Chris Hepler (now a writer on Mass Effect) and I had written several books for Shadowrun, Earthdawn and Paranoia.”

“We then took a detour in Hollywood for a few years, but it was a very natural gravitation back toward games which brought us to GDC to meet Bioware. After six years in Hollywood, when we were still calling “extras” “NPCs,” we figured maybe we were in the wrong field.” Hepler added.

Read the full interview with BioWare senior writer Jennifer Hepler here, in which she also details what her job involves.

There’s more advice from professionals on getting into the industry here on The Train2Game Blog, with more information on Train2Game courses here.

What are your thoughts on the idea of using tabletop RPGs as a base for getting into the games industry?

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

Train2Game News: Gears of War: Judgement developer diary discusses multiplayer game design changes

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Gears of War: Judgement will expose players to a time zone they’ve not accessed before and a new type of class based multiplayer. That’s what Epic Games has revealed in a Gears of War: Judgement E3 2012 developer diary.

The game is a prequel which Director of development Rod Fergusson, multiplayer designer Quinn Delhoyo believe offers a different style of gameplay that puts a twist on the Gears of War series.

They also run through the game design mechanics of Overrun, the class based multiplayer mode and reveal that inspiration for it came from the feedback of Gears of War players.

Watch the Gears of War: Judgement E3 2012 developer diary below, right here on The Train2Game Blog.

Keep reading The Train2Game Blog for news from E3 2012, while there’s more from Epic Games here.

What are your thoughts on the game design changes of multiplayer for Gears of War: Judgement?

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

Train2Game News: Dota 2 officially confirmed as free-to-play by Valve

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Dota 2 will be free-to-play with a microstransaction store allowing players to buy community and developer created items, Valve has announced.  Steam Workshop will be the way in which players submit items to be used in the game.

“The opening of the Dota Store is a big part of our final push to launch,” said Dota 2 lead designer IceFrog.

“With support for the Steam Workshop, the majority of the items made available on day one were created and being sold by members of the community. By making the game Free to Play, we hope to give gamers the ability to decide how – and how much – they want to invest in the game.” he added.

The significance for Train2Game students is that, potentially, items they submit to the Dota 2 workshop could become a full part of the game.

Valve a targeting a full release of the RTS/RPG hybrid before the end of this year, with a Dota 2 closed beta currently underway.

Dota 2 follows in the footsteps of Team Fortress 2 in both allowing users to submit items to the Steam workshop and being free-to-play.

For the latest news from Valve, keep reading The Train2Game Blog.

What are your thoughts on the decision to make Dota 2 free-to-play, with the ability to contribute items to the store?

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

Train2Game News: Quantic Dream “unhappy with everything” about Heavy Rain says David Cage

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Heavy Rain Train2Game blog image

Heavy Rain may have been rather successful, even scooping three BAFTAs, but that doesn’t mean developer Quantic Dream is satisfied with what they produced. In fact, game director David Cage has admitted the team thinks they could’ve done better.

“We were pretty much unhappy with everything. We thought we could have done a better job in all areas, and have better rendering, and better visuals, and better gameplay, and better everything,”  Quantic Dream boss David Cage told Gamasutra in an extensive interview.

“This is definitely things we took into account designing the new technology, wanting to work with performance capture. And we wanted a better blend of storytelling and interactivity. We thought that sometimes in Heavy Rain there were moments where the balance wasn’t exactly right. We are working on new ways of merging this in a more natural and fluid way.” he added.

Heavy Rain did, however, sell well, something that Cage was satisfied with.

“I think it performed better than anyone’s expectations, including ours, to be honest,” he said.

As previously reported by The Train2Game Blog, Quantic Dream released their Kara tech demo earlier this year. It’s rumoured to lay the foundations for their next project, with suggestions it could be revealed at E3.

Keep reading The Train2Game Blog for more from Quantic Dream.

What are your thoughts on Cage’s comments about Heavy Rain? How important is it for developers to look at their work and examine what could be done better?

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

Train2Game News: MMOs represent “toughest part of the game industry” says SWTOR lead designer

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MMOs are the most difficult genre for game developers to be successful in. That’s the view of Star Wars: The Old Republic associate lead designer Emmanuel Lusinchi.

“The MMO is the toughest part of the game industry without a doubt and we live in tough economic times in general,” he told PC Gamer.

“We have a very large development team still, definitely one of the biggest in the industry, and we have a very complete and detailed plan for the rest of the year.” the BioWare man continued.

“The players don’t really care about all that, behind closed curtains, but they want what they’re paying for which is a service with new content, new systems, that’s what they’re asking for and we listen to them. That’s what we mean to deliver.” he added.

Train2Game spoke to Emmanuel Lusinchi last year, in an in-depth discussion which covered development of Star Wars: The Old Republic, what his role as associate lead designer involves, and advice on getting into the games industry. Read it here on The Train2Game Blog.

Keep reading The Train2Game Blog for the latest Star Wars: The Old Republic news.

Do you agree with Lusinchi about MMOs being the hardest games to develop? That said, would you like to work on one in future?

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

Train2Game News: “A tonne of research” going into Company of Heroes 2 to produce authentic experience

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Relic Entertainment game designers have visited eastern Europe in an effort to make Company of Heroes 2, their upcoming RTS title, as authentic as possible.

“We do a tonne of research at Relic. We had a core group of guys go to actual Eastern Europe, to Leningrad, to some of the battlefields like Sinyavino Heights, and Germany to Berlin so it’s incredibly important.” Company of Heroes 2 lead campaign designer Jacen Torres told Shadowlocked.

He added that the trips to Russia and Germany were key to make the player get a feel of what it was like fighting on the Eastern Front during World War 2.

“Now, there’s always a difference between authenticity and realism, and we try to get realistic where we can, especially in things like visuals.” said Torres.

“But obviously gameplay is not going to completely mirror the realism or war, necessarily, but in that particular case we tried to make it authentic and we try and get the tone and a feel and the look or what is the Eastern Front, how does it feel to be fighting in these small Russian villages, and that’s a big part of it.” the Relic lead campaign designer added.

Company of Heroes 2 is scheduled for release in the early part of 2013. Keep reading The Train2Game Blog for the latest Company of Heroes 2 news it developers.

What are your thoughts on the effort Relic are going to research Company of Heroes 2? How important do you believe good research to be for game development?

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