Hello readers!

I’ve been spending a bit of time recently on the next version of ColorZap. There are a load of gameplay tweaks that (I think) have made it better. I’m intending to do a post on these, and what the thinking was behind them, at a later date.

I’ve also been implementing some of the background stuff that you probably never even noticce when you’re playing an Xbox Indie game, such as being able to use any controller, gamertag logging in, and that sort of thing.

Finally, I’ve been converting it to hi-def, because Sony said that was all kicking off now, and I didn’t want to be left behind. This has meant the gameplay area is bigger, which is obviously a lot better, but it’s also meant that I’ve been spending a long time looking at the existing block sprite.

And I really don’t like it.

The problem is, I can’t work out exactly what I prefer. I’ve narrowed it down to a few options, and I was wondering if you would be so kind as to telling me which of these options you prefer. Full size graphics are available by clicking on each thumbnail.

Thanks very much!

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

Option 4

Slightly off topic for games, but enough games people have blogs I think, and I bet most of those are from relatively unknown developers with readership in the single figures. Certainly most of the ones I read aren’t from people whose names I see plastered across games websites. And I imagine most of my readers would walk past me in the street without recognising me.

And, since I wrote this for another website, and I didn’t have anything else written for today, I thought I would share some of the titbits of information I have picked up over my couple of years blogging.

Though I will say you should take all of this with a massive grain of salt, and keep in mind my readership is piss weak really (numbers-wise, I’m not saying anything bad about you guys. I love you guys), so perhaps some of this stuff isn’t important or I’m doing wrong. Certainly I would never position myself as any kind of blogging expert.

• I personally don’t think name is very important, but I would strongly advise against moving/changing name once you’d done any amount of pimping at all for your site. I changed mine over at new year and noticed a shard drop in natural and search engine traffic (even with importing all of the old articles. I wish there was a way of telling Google to forget my old site and re-index those things here, but never mind).
• I don’t think having a dedicated domain as opposed to a .wordpress or .blogspot address matters one bit. In fact, being hosted by Blogger will bring in traffic through their title bar navigatioon thingy.
• I would recommend spending some time with your theme. Mine’s no oil painting, I would be the first to admit, but I think if yours looks like a default theme it tends to suggest you’ve not spent time on your blog, so it wouldn’t be worth my spending time reading it. Blogger is a bit more limited in what you can do without some knowhow, but just Google “WordPress Themes” to see the vast array of styles available to you for free.
• Add pictures to your posts. Just like I haven’t done for this one (because I couldn’t think of something even remotely relevant). This serves two purposes – first, your site will start to show up on Google Image searches. Second, it helps to break up the otherwise big wall of text that a blog frontpage can sometimes be.
• On a “getting your site known” slant, I can only suggest writing articles you think people might be interested in, and being more aggressive in pushing them. I have found that people aren’t terribly interested in “I played this game. It were gud.” style posts, unless you have a particularly different slant.
• Especially if you have a twitter account, there are plenty of lists of game developers out there – start following random people (you can always unfollow later if they are terminally dull or updating too frequently/spam your feed) and the chances are a bunch of people will follow you back. This is a stunningly easy way of building up a network of people who are at least passingly interested in what you have to say (they would unfollow you if you annoyed them). As long as your account isn’t just for spamming blog posting links, and you use it for proper discussion too, you will find traffic here.
• Similarly with blogs, find other game development blogs, put a link to them in your blogroll, and email the author saying “hey I’ve linked to you, would you like to link back?” This generates a small amount of natural traffic just by being in a blogroll – though if a site does a dedicated article highlighting a few new sites you can notice a massive spike.
• I would change over your RSS feed to only show summaries of articles, rather than full articles, as people who are interested will then have to come to your site. This means that they may find more articles they’d like to read.
• More general this one, but don’t leech images on your site. It looks bad if they are blocked / removed / turned into donkey porn.
• Finally make sure to sign up on Google Webmaster tools and submit your RSS feed as sitemaps. Webmaster tools will also show you how well ranked your site is for searches it turns up on, how many people subscribe to your feeds, etc. It really is fascinating. Oh and Google Analytics – you’re on Google Analytics of course.

Hopefully some of these tips will be of use to a couple of people who read this blog. Let’s get more of a circle of development staff blogs going – these big name guys have had it too easy for too long.

I was linked to an article on GameSpy the other day titled “Dear Games Industry, Please Stop Making Games“.

Though obviously written semi-tongue in cheek the author’s point still stands, and I tend to agree with him to some degree.

At time of writing my unplayed game list stands at (in no particular order):

• Bioshock 2
• Red Faction Guerrilla
• Saints Row 2
• Overlord 2
• Left 4 Dead 2
• Killzone 2
• The Saboteur
• WET
• inFamous
• Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time
• Forza 3
• Bayonetta
• DiRT 2
• Borderlands
• And perhaps most shameful unopened title of all – The Ballad of Gay Tony

Most of these are completely unstarted. Perhaps half a dozen have had the first level or so played, but I still feel like I have a significant amount of progress to make. And that’s just on the PS3 & 360, I have a few PSP games I’ve yet to scratch.

This may be vaguely rose-tinted, but I remember a a time when, as a game enthusiast, you could keep a good knowledge of everything that was coming out. These days, it seems that you either have to pick the very cream of the crop, or specialise your game knowledge more.

For example, I play very few RPGs. The idea of them appeals to me, but I just don’t have the time to play more than maybe one 100 hour epic a year. I certainly don’t have the time to play enough to build a solid knowledge and be able to compare them. So I can say with some certainty I will never play Dragon Age or Demons Souls, despite both being game of the year contenders.

Unfortunately my chosen area to focus my knowledge in on is 3rd person shooters and action games. Of which there are a lot, and most of them seem to be moving in the direction of open world sandbox experiences. So even they’re heading towards 40 hours each. Sob.

I have been thinking about games that allow connection to the various social websites that da yoof of today use (and I would really love to include myself in that, even though I know it’s not true. I sometimes think that when I’m using Twitter some people must look upon me and see only Dr Evil insisting that he’s with it and hip, and doing an embarrassing dance).

At first I thought connecting my PS3 or 360 to Twitter would be a great idea. My friends would be able to see what games I was playing, it might spark up conversations or they could offer me tips about difficult levels.

In practice this doesn’t seem to be the case, though. These applications are quickly reducing previously interesting Facebook feeds to horrible noise, set to be ignored.

Do I really care that my chum has downloaded the free demo for Heavy Rain? No, apparently not.

So based on my own preferences for these sort of things I quickly turned off any kind of integration that I previously had running, in order to not further annoy the few friends I have.

It seems to me that there must be a middle ground, though it may require more intelligence on the part of the updating software. If a friend who rarely plays puts in a new game, that may be interesting. When a friend plays a seldom-played game that has co-op, and that I also have, that might be interesting too.

When someone who’s playing games sixteen hours of every day reaches the end of a game I’ve barely even looked at, that’s not interesting.

But it did make me wonder, do other people enjoy this information? Do you like having your social channels filled with information about what level your friends are on?

I want you to imagine you’re at a party. I like to think that my readership is cool and sociable enough to have been to at least one, so conjure that memory up.

While you’re at that amazing party, you meet some new people. You’re probably introduced to them through a mutual acquaintance. You’re not so cool or sociable that you can just start going up to strangers at imaginary parties and chatting away to them.

As the “getting to know you” small talk continues, eventually the inevitable question is asked: “So, what do you do?”

Now, this is the bit where I start to get a little flustered (oh yeah, I can totally handle talking to strangers up until now).

I will usually pause to think about what intonation is best to use on the next sentence. I need to read the crowd a little and try to work out if they are the sort of people likely to think my job is incredibly crap and entirely childish. Or are they nerds and thus likely to be impressed by, or interested in, what I do.

“I make video games. You know, for PlayStation and Xbox. That sort of thing.” Depending on my conclusion I will either mutter that and quickly move the conversation on, or proclaim it as if I am God, and prepare to bask in glory.

Some day that glory will come. What usually happens is either a) They weren’t really nerds at all; b) They ask if I can get them some free games; or c) Very rarely I’ll get asked how I got in to it.

So since there’s a slight chance that someone reading this will want to know the answer to that last question (because if you’re reading a blog called Mainly About Games I think there is a strong chance that you are interested in games, if only a little bit) I thought I would write a post about how I managed it.

And then spend half of that post on the set-up. Oh well, you live and learn.

Anyway, on to getting in to the games industry…

To say “I fell into it” is pretty much the truth, though slightly simplified as I did do a bit of steering myself. It was sort of like getting a decent score in Monkey Target.

Though I am a very youthful thing, I have a brother who’s nine years older than me. In his teens he was very interested in computers (though has since given that whole lark up for something much better paying. Sensible guy, my brother). This meant that at a very formative age there was a Commodore Vic20 in our house.

This also meant computer magazines, and with them came type in listings for games. I was probably around five or six years old at this point, and was watching my brother type these things in, then work through the listing to find things to change. I think the earliest bit of programming I did was change the “programmed by” credit on some type-in game to say it was entirely my own work. Six years old and already performing IP theft. Shocking.

After the Vic20 came an Acorn Electron. This was the computer that salesmen flogged on the understanding that it was the same basic machine as UK schools used at the time (the BBC Micro, if you’re interested). It never seemed to be wildly successful to me, and many popular games were never released on it and not many of my friends had one.

This general lack of commercial games could possibly be what pushed me more towards programming my own. I was never the strongest programmer (and still aren’t to this day), so unfortunately I was limited to Basic, but still managed to knock out a few simple shoot ‘em ups, platformers, and a couple of text adventures. I also remember my first encounters with simple modding, as a few Gauntlet clones shipped with map and graphic editors.

Eventually I / my parents saved up enough money and, realising that the trusty Electron was on its last legs, bought an Amiga 500. This is pretty much where I got the majority of my games knowledge, and also where I continued to create my own games, this time in AMOS (yeah, hardcore coding there!)

Anyway, all of this exposure to computers and games somewhat predictably led to Computer Science being my strongest subject through my GCSEs and A Levels (I’ve included Wikipedia links so that those not in the UK can still follow what sort of age range I’m talking about here). From that I went to The University of York to do a Computer Science BSc.

At this point I hadn’t really thought about games in a professional capacity at all. Computer Science seemed like a good general subject that would suit me well no matter what area of computing I eventually wanted to get in to, and that has latterly proved to be the case. Still today if I’m asked how best to get in to games I suggest doing a generalised computing qualification that includes programming.

Between my first and second years at university I spent some of my student loan on buying a PC, as by this time the Amiga was pretty much dead in the water, release-wise. The PC was just coming in to its own. Command and Conquer and Quake had been released within the last couple of years, and everything was looking very exciting.

I soon splashed out on a 3d card for running Quake, Quake 2, Tomb Raider and Carmageddon. At the same time my housemate had bought a PlayStation, and so I was seeing a steady stream of the best that had to offer.

The next year I did an industrial placement. This was for Digital Equipment Corporation in Reading, UK. Working meant that I had a lot more spare time in the evenings (no coursework or reading to do – brilliant!) and I somehow fell upon the idea that making maps for Quake would be a good idea. This was down to it being the game played by my house and work mates over lunchtimes, as the software rendering kept it going on work computers.

Later that year Half-Life was released, and since it used the same basic engine and tools as Quake it was a simple step to move on to making maps for that, and then later Counter-Strike.

Back in university for my final year, and it was time to start looking around for jobs. I was applying to all of the big computing firms, same as all of the other computer science students. But as I was browsing some Counter-Strike mapping forum one day (admittedly my memory for which site isn’t so good, especially since I lost all of my bookmarks in a change of computers a number of years back) I saw a recruitment thread. A company in Sheffield was looking for level designers to work on a console FPS title. Hey, Sheffield is near York, I should apply for that, what’s the worst that could happen?

And, as they say, the rest is history. That job was my first step in to the games industry.

Obviously I’ve had the chance to talk to a lot of games designers since then, and it seems that my route isn’t entirely uncommon. Most people get into games because they love games, and that usually ends up with them working on something in their spare time.

Some more cynical commentators might suggest that this prepares them for exactly the same experience in the industry. I couldn’t possibly comment.

Anyway, I hope this has been an interesting (if overly long) read to at least one person wondering about getting in to games. I have a few more updates planned along these lines – some further suggestions for how to best get yourself into a games job, and also a bit of a retrospective on my old maps (which should be fairly embarrassing).

And now that you’ve read about how I became a game designer, maybe you’d like to read my tips on how you can become one too.

Yeah yeah, I know I’m pretty late with this. Apparently the decade ended over a month ago.

But recently, in what I think I must have been a brief unusually introspective patch, I was set to thinking “What did I do for ten years?”. So I have made a bit of an effort to try and think of all of the things of any kind of significance that happened to me between January 1st 2000 and December 31st 2009.

• Graduated university.
• Worked professionally on eleven games.
• Worked professionally on four games that got released.
• Met and eventually married my wife. (I should have probably put this higher up the list, right?)
• Went on holiday to Corfu, Egypt, New York, Spain, Dublin, and the Maldives.
• Worked at two games companies.
• Was made redundant from one games company as it went into administration.
• Created nine maps in my spare time for Half Life mods.
• Wrote one hundred and sixty six blog entries.
• Spent eight months working in California.
• Owned three cars.
• Bought one house.
• Made about eighty percent of one XNA game.

So, what have I leant from listed all of this out. Well, I should go on holiday more often – once every year and a half is pretty rubbish. My ratio of released to unreleased games is terrible (though probably not entirely uncommon). I shouldn’t write out everything I’ve managed to do in ten years because the list is slightly depressing in its brevity.

And I had a pretty interesting decade.

What did you do?

Movie average. Comic dire. Game worse than both. Franchise assassinated.

I’ve spent the last week playing an awful lot of one of my most anticipated games of the year, Mass Effect 2. I was a huge fan of the first one, even though the generic side quests let it down, and I couldn’t wait to dive in to the sequel. Don’t worry, there are no story spoilers below…

And as expected I’m enjoying it a lot, though it isn’t really the game I was expecting at all. In many ways it just doesn’t feel like an RPG to me, and at times it almost feels like you’re playing a version of Gears of War that doesn’t have a crap story.

This is in part down to the combat being improved a huge amount, and the locations feeling more purpose built for being in a cover shooter (though as in most similar games that tends to break immersion in the locations a little, as they often have big piles of boxes or random pipes at waist height).

With the rest of the game I’m not sure that improvement is a word you could use. It seems like Bioware have made a big list of everything that was criticised in the first one and stripped it out. Not improved on, just gone straight in with the scissors, and slapped something else in place instead.

“People didn’t like the Mako” has resulted in no more Big Trak roaming at all. Rather than improving the planets to not feel so barren and samey, and improve on the handling of the vehicle, you’re now given no option of scouting planet surfaces up close.

Instead you scan them from orbit, in what most rank as the most painfully dull part of any AAA game I’ve played in a long time. Slowly moving a cursor over an orb, keeping an eye on a moving line graph at the side of the screen, to be rewarded with relatively tiny amounts of materials? No, thanks.

I can see that keeping the same philosophy this will be gone in the sequel, instead of allowing the team to improve it (perhaps by allowing an upgrade that maps a ‘heat graph’ of mineral density that the player could use to get some initial focus).

“People found the inventory management cumbersome” -> No more inventory at all. When you pick up a new gun everyone on your squad who can use that type of weapon now has the upgrade. No need to decide who gets to keep what.

This is handy, but at the same time means there is very little for the game to reward you with. Loot comes in the form of either ammo pickups, minerals or, for the most part, money. Very rarely you’ll get an upgrade schematic. Hacking computer terminals and datapads to get interesting backstory and flesh out the universe? Forget it, you’ll get a few thousand credits. I think this is the area I find most disappointing.

“People didn’t like the elevator rides that masked loading pauses” -> no more elevators, we’ll just cut to techy looking splash screens instead. Now this is possibly because I’m running it off hard drive, but the game has much shorter loading times than the first. If the elevator ridess in the original had been that short people wouldn’t have minded.

Leaving the game to show a splash screen also gives locations a slightly more “bitty” feel to me, that is compounded by some other design decisions (for example, most quests will warp you back to a starting point once you hit the end trigger, rather than allowing you to continue exploring).

The entire game now feels like everything is just a series of individual levels, rather than being continuous spaces and areas.

Anyway, that’s how I feel about the game after a week of play (around 24 hours, according to my save game). I’m still enjoying it, and will press on to the end, but I find it interesting the approach they have taken.

Fixes everything from part one. Double stab fun. DLC shit.

Those are complex shadows, right? Ha ha, you see the clever gaming joke I have made to introduce the game which I am going to write about?

Ok yeah I apologise. I also apologise for writing the entirety of this six months ago and then not realising I hadn’t scheduled it to publish. Oh well, it’s here now. The rest of this post will be in strict bullet point formatting to allow as little of my creative writing to shine through as possible.

First up, the good:

• It is very pretty, due to good use of the Unreal 3 engine.
• Exploring the game’s map is compelling, which is a relief since you will be doing a lot of that (especially if you want to get all of the bonus items).
• The controls are generally well mapped and intuitive if you’ve played almost any shooting game in the last five years.
• It grants you a steady stream of unlocking new abilities throughout the entire game, while always teasing you with areas you can’t get to until you get more toys. It would have been easy for the devs to mispace the unlocking, and either give you too much at the start, or the end.
• Using your torch to highlight interactive elements is a nice modern touch to the style of game. I can’t help but think some purists who fought their way through Super Metroid without an hints are going to be a bit disappointed, and dismiss this as being for pussies. But that’s fine, they can just not use it.
• There are some very nice environmental elements, such as lifts that not only be used when you’re standing in them, but also have “maintenance” controls allowing you to use them when you’re stood on the top, or hanging underneith.
• The full on 3d shooter sections are usually a nice break from the flow, and allow the game to show off a little bit without feeling unfair.

But now we must have the bad:

• The are some odd control and level design combinations. For example, a running jump has slightly more height, but doesn’t actually require any run-up, you just need to be pressing run and jump. There are some critical path routes that use this knowledge (that I never remember being told) – why not just make these “normal high jump” height?
• Sometimes the pretty art gets in the way, and foreground detail blocks your view of where a ledge ends.
• There seems to be no purpose to the torch having a limited battery, since it charges up so quickly. Why bother? I hate limited flashlight batteries.
• Having to shoot in the z-axis feels nasty and wrong, especially since I don’t have much of a choice about what I’m targeting there.
• In fact, the whole z-axis feels nasty and curiously works to break immersion in the game world. The game sometimes relies on trapping you in a room, when there is very obviously a route out towards the back, and stairwells just look stupid when you have to jump over half of the stairs because technically they’re in the background layer.
• The boss encounters are pretty generically designed graphics wise (which is really a criticism that could be levelled at the whole game as it’s very grey military base chic), and also design wise. Very rarely do you have to think about how to destroy them, especially by the end of the game where you are all but invincible.
• The dialogue and writing is horrible. It heavily uses tropes such as eavesdropping on enemies who are having a stilted and very expositional conversation, and the cutscene dialogue with your love interest that’s probably meant to be moving or heroic but just feels wooden.

To summarise: If it was a full price release on a disc it would be a terrible waste of money, but it’s not, so it’s not.