Cassidy's GDC 2013 Notes

Post date: Apr 07, 2013 3:22:21 PM

GDC 2013 Notes

Cassidy Aquilino-Berg

Notes Index

·         Creating Amazing Characters, Scott Campbell (Lead Character Concept Artist at Double Fine)

·         Men are from Mars, Women are from Ferelden, Heidi Mcdonald (Game Designer at Schell Games)

·         Interactive Fiction: Tradition vs. Potential, Mordechai Buckman (Independent Designer)

·         Building the World of Dishonored, Victor Antonov (Zenimax Media) and Sebastien Mitton (Arkane Studios)

·         Embracing Style and Imperfection: Using Style to your Advantage, Sara Gross (Two Bit Art)

·         How much is Enough for Beauty?, Andrew Maximov (Environment Artist at Gameloft Montreal)

·         Rayman Reinvented: How Rayman’s World came to Life, Anais Dustois and Christophe Villez (Ubisoft Montipellier)

·         Sex in Videogames, David Gaider (Lead Writer at Bioware Edmonton)

·         Designing Journey, Jenova Chen (Creative Director at thatgamecompany)

·         The Art of DMC: Devil May Cry, Alessandro Taini (Ninja Theory)

·         Building the Touchy-Feely World of Tearaway, Rex Crowe (Lead Creator at Media Molecule)

·         From Gears to Lili, Lessons about Mid-Core and Mobile, Lee Perry (Co-founder at BitMonster)

·         10 Principals for Good Level Design, Dan Taylor (Square Enix)

Creating Amazing Characters with Scott Campbell (Lead Character Concept Artist at Double Fine)

·         Focus on backstory and getting pumped

·         Put everything there for a reason

·         ‘WHY?’ Give a story to every piece of clothing/accessory

·         Do gesture drawings of things the character would normally do

·         Use established characters as inspiration

o   Example: Agent Sasha Nein from Psychonauts was inspired by Agent Cooper from Twin Peaks and the Orderly in Psychonauts was inspired by Steve Buscemi

·         Get ALL the reference, surround yourself in reference and just take it in

·         Make lists of anything that pops into your head that is related

·         What makes it specific to this world? Give it a backstory

·         Don’t start with the main character

·         Design a character that gets excited so that the player gets excited too; relatable character

·         Scott’s Process

o   Gather reference and mood boards, find the feeling

o   Make lists; let thing flow, use disposable paper

o   TONS of gestures with simple shapes

o   Scan in and put in value

o   Draw the character in situations

o   Color rough

o   Character Sheet

·         Redraw…but to a point, don’t over do it till it gets stiff

·         Editing is IMPORTANT

·         You can’t get married to ideas, the idea might be good, but just not right for the subject or project

Men are from Mars, Women are from Ferelden with Heidi Mcdonald

(Game Designer at Schell Games, hmcdonald@schellgames.com)

·         Talk based on gender studies of how women and men react differently to single player romances in games

·         ICING Model – Model created by Heidi for successful in-game romances

o   Inclusive

§  Players like ‘Identity Tourism’

o   Character Perspective

o   Interference

o   Not using universally hated descriptors

o   Gratifying Endings

·         Women relate games to books, Men relate games to movies

·         Women play characters similar to themselves with a bit of tweaking, Men play WAY bolder, brasher characters and play badasses

·         Women experiment more with roleplaying and identity than men

·         Men romance for in-game benefits

·         Women romance for emotional fulfillment

·         Industry needs to improve female characters

o   Less interchangeable

o   More emotionally engaging

o   Lots of dimensions

o   “Less Ashley from Mass Effect, More Morrigan from Dragon Age: Origins”

·         Don’t stop at adding buffs for in-game benefits in romances, add choices that effect the over-arching narrative

·         Offer more choices of types of people

·         Don’t be afraid of diversity

o   Players like to experiment

·         Sad can be beautiful and Beautiful can be sad

·         Make players work harder at cultivating a romances

·         Add more consequence to making decisions; regret

Interactive Fiction: Tradition vs. Potential

With Mordechai Buckman (Independent Designer, mory@TheBuckmans.com)

·         Things that are REALLY important in narrative: pacing, character development, emotional arch

·         Don’t divorce design from narrative

·         Keep design supporting narrative, vice versa

·         Make different gameplay for when you want your player to feel something different

·         Make gameplay that fits the situation

·         Game design and narrative should like in harmony

·         Break narrative tradition

·         Include what the player is interested in, don’t put things in that aren’t engaging

·         For diverse story make diverse design

·         Switch between different gameplay traditions if you do use them

o   Example: Walking Dead

·         Make something new

·         Engage in new ways

·         Who are the characters? How are they specific to this world?

·         How you present things should match up with experience

·         Choices and situation nuances should be reflected in interface/interaction

·         Keep changing gameplay as the experience changes

·         Do what the story calls for

·         Match visual to the way people ACTUALLY think

·         Make decisions less binary

·         Look at real life and simulate it visually and through design

Building the World of Dishonored with Victor Antonov (Zenimax Media) and Sebastien Mitton (Arkane Studios)

·         Get real life reference and actually go outside and go places

·         Get the feel of the place

·         Night and day has very different feel and light

·         Use artificial light to play with emotion

·         Character reference – Gibson Books

·         Do a line up of all the character silouettes to make sure they are different and defined

·         How does light play on the planes of objects and characters? Play attention to light

·         Make plausible designs, even when it’s fantastic

·         Handpainting brings a better understanding to why details are actually on an object/texture

Embracing Style and Imperfection: Using Style to your Advantage with Sara Gross (Two Bit Art, twobitart@gmail.com)

·         Worked on Hollows Deep, but it was cancelled

·         Look at Stealth Bastard for a stylized Stealth game

·         Style is essence

o   Style offers function

o   Style sets us apart

o   Flaws are beautiful and interesting

·         Look at Scott Mcloud’s table

·         Amplification through simplification

·         Simple makes spaces easier to navigate; less visual noise, easier to add emphasis on important areas/objects

·         Style adds character and emotion

·         Style is made up of art imperfections

·         Style to reinforce concept

o   Example: The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai

·         LOTS of examples of good stylized games

o   Guacamelee

o   Color Sheep

o   Waiting for hours

o   Stealer

o   Shank

·         If you are having a hard time convincing someone style is appealing or the right direction gather reference to show; ref is IMPORTANT

·         Have consistency in imperfection

How much is Enough for Beauty? (Andrew Maximov, Enviornment Artist at Gameloft Montreal, artisaverb.info)

·         Photorealism is not as engaging as style because we are used to it

·         Photorealism will lose its appeal once it becomes the norm and reaches it limit

·         Things that make a successful artwork (in varying amounts)

o   Colors

o   Composition

o   Subject

o   Lighting

o   Scale/Detail

o   Quality of Execution

·         Execution doesn’t add appeal, it just takes away appeal when not present

·         Imply detail instead of putting it all there

o   Example: Rob Rupel

·         Build your game around beauty

·         Be empowered to work on the bigger picture

·         Remove minimally contributing work out of the way

·         Remove visual clutter

·         Do more with less

·         Careful consideration

·         Streamlined effort

·         Dedication to what matter most

·         Do it today!

·         Making games is not about how well technically executed it is, it’s about being able to make ANYTHING

Rayman Reinvented: How Rayman’s World came to Life with Anais Dustois and Christophe Villez (Ubisoft Montipellier)

·         A video of all of the employees looking creepily happy, studio spirit/moral is positive and keeping people happy is important to make good work

·         Working on creative projects helps with moral

·         Surround yourself with passionate people

·         LOOK HOW HAPPY WE ARE, WE ARE SO HAPPY

·         Focus on iconic silhouettes

·         You should be able to understand a character by just looking at it

·         When redesigning Rayman they went back to the basics with design and visuals

·         Wanted to keep the energy of the concept art

·         Be inspired by the art when thinking of level design

·         Create levels that are alive with lots of things happening

·         Style and ref >>> Pipeline

o   Style Example: Roaco(?) Le Rouge

·         Form follows Function

·         “We are like cheaters. Nice cheaters.”

·         “This small character looks like a testicle.”

·         “We can make anything look alive in Rayman Origins, even a testicle.”

·         Strong pose is important

·         Communicate with people

·         Bring your game to life

·         Silhouette is SOOOO important

·         Think about where your character comes from and where they want to go

Sex in Videogames with David Gaider (Lead Writer at Bioware Edmonton, davidg@bioware.com)

·         DISCLAIMER: The name of this talk was intentionally misleading. It was actually about romances in games and the role of gender and diversity in games and gamer culture.

·         Pay attention to the audience you are trying to appeal to when you are creating a romancable character

·         47% of gamers are female

·         There has recently been more increased scrutiny on the portrayal of women in games

·         Don’t make assumptions

·         Privilege is thinking something is not a problem because it is not a problem for YOU

·         “This is what sells.” is just an excuse

·         Check out Feminist Frequency

·         Moral responsibility will soon become legal responsibility

·         Reducteo Absurdum

·         Think about ‘How do you not REPEL an audience?’

·         Think about ‘How are you using minority characters?’

·         Thing about how you can make women appealing to both genders

·         Balance in portrayal of females

o   Lots of diversity, lots of different types of personalities

·         If you are going to offend people, do it knowingly and for purpose

Designing Journey with Jenova Chen (President and Lead Designer at thatgamecompany)

·         Innovate with emotion

·         Movies are categorized into emotional genres

·         Games have an emotional palette

·         Empowerment in games targets young men who crave freedom

·         Push the boundary of what kind of emotion to communicate

·         Forget about material things and focus on humanness

·         Feeling of togetherness was the focus of Journey

·         Trying to identify the emotion between social interactivity

·         Traveling to the moon makes people feel the unknown and causes spiritual/religious transformation; inspiration for journey

·         Wanted to re-design the online experience

·         Wanted to reverse power relationship, make players work together against monster instead of fight among themselves

·         Wanted to create feeling of loneliness and awe

·         Music = most effective and powerful medium to evoke emotion

·         Start with music

·         Grameplay = graphics as gameplay

·         Visual Feedback is important

o   Sandtrail for feedback to make traversal less boring, the whole screen is giving feed back as you traverse

·         Trying to capture what we wished was real visually

o   Example: We wished we could slide in sand like that in real life, but it just doesn’t work

·         No mechanics; just feedback

·         Avoid emotional distractions

·         Too many players turned it into us versus them and because distracting

·         Collaboration and flow is important

·         Don’t make players fight for resources

o   Their solution: Infinite resources, limited pocket size

·         Players don’t carry morality from real life

o   Players are born into a new world so they are like babies

o   Babies look for feedback

o   Violence and bad things have feedback so that is why players do negative things they would never dare in real life

o   Give closeness feedback

·         Executing emotional catharsis

o   Catharsis = sudden emotional climax that brings change

·         Awe and Mystery works with monomyth and Joseph Campbell

·         Change the visuals based on steps in the monomyth and emotional arches

·         Freedom, movement, energy, connection

·         Add struggle and give visual feedback for it

·         Take away hope

·         Keep gameplay consistent

The Art of DMC: Devil May Cry with Alessandro Taini (Ninja Theory, alex.taini@ninjatheory.com, @talexiart)

·         Show, don’t tell, about your character’s transformation

·         Show the reason for key elements of character

·         Have your games style be recognizable form a screenshot, don’t let it blend with other games

·         Surrealism as Hell = limbo

·         Color script for whole game, color changes for different situations

·         Thinking of the world/buildings as creatures

·         Give a reason why things are doing what they do

Building the Touchy-Feely World of Tearaway (Rex Crowe, Lead Creator at Media Molecule, @rexbox)

·         Likes tangible feeling things

·         Returned to basic materials, things that you can leave a physical mark on and that leave a physical mark on you

·         Wanted to comment on the role of actual finger in games; fingers are make part of the story

·         Breaking the fourth wall to make it more tactile and engaging

·         Tactile, reactive, visually distinctive, not conventionally 3D

·         Imperfections, limitations, movement all important to create engaging style

·         Paper became the whole ETHOS

·         Limitations create ideas and focus

·         Created a fantasy world, but realistically constructed

·         Not just a world you can touch, but a world you can feel

·         “I’m convinced that 2D printers are going to be the next big thing.”

·         “This makes me so happy. I could watch this all day.”

·         Paper >>> Focus >>> Freedom >>> Fun

From Gears to Lili, Lessons about Mid-Core and Mobile with Lee Perry (Founder and Lead Designer at BitMonster, @mrleeperry)

·         Lili maps are based directly off Pacman maps

·         Make something to bring visibility

·         Things that went wrong with Lili

o   7 month development

o   Hand-holdy tutorial

o   Hand-holdy campaign, too many objectives

§  Should have done more free roaming

o   Difficulty curves were too

o   New players but old mechanics and they need conditioning and training

o   No text, no voices, no attention span

o   Story in mobile, mobile not ready for story yet?

·         Reframbrance = Over Polish, pushing things for yourself too far when they audience would be totally satisfied with less

·         Mid-core= Core gameplay with an accessible wrapper

o   Accessible doesn’t have to mean simple

o   Mobile doesn’t have to mean dumb

·         Core gamers still want blockbusters, there is still a place and always will be a place for console and AAA games

·         Kickstarter should be treated as a marketplace for ideas

o   Where are the dream pitches on Kickstarter?

o   Preorder vibe?

o   It’s the value or lack of?

·         If you are 100% artistically motivated, cool, you rock BUT

·         If something is a bad fit for mobile, don’t force it

·         Complex is ok, but mid-core needs simple too

·         Focus on short play sessions

·         Take design risks

·         ‘Weird Points’ – every time you do something crazy you take part of your market away

·         Mid-core is held to different standards

·         Be flexible with your opinions, there are no B&W stances

·         REFRAMBRANCE! Don’t do it!

·         Devs are bad at accepting advice, all think we’re special snowflakes who are always right

·         Lili might have been more successful if we had listened more

·         Trends are just advice from a billion people, listen to them

·         Designing within parameters is a skill

·         Remember, there are no rules, no grand authority to scream in the face of, not man to stick it to

·         Mid-core can turn casual players into hard-core gamers

10 Principals for Good Level Design with Dan Taylor (Square Enix, dtaylor@square-enix-montreal.com)

·         These are guiding principle, not written in stone

·         1 – Good level design is fun to navigate

o   Visual language, consistent

o   Clarity and flow

o   Confusion is cool

·         2 – Good level design does not rely on words to tell a story

o   The broken circle

o   3 Narrative types

§  Explicit – cutscenes, etc.

§  Implicit – Mis-en-scene = environmental narrative

§  Emergent – Story players make up in their head/Role-playing

o   Player choice

·         3 - Good level design always tells the player what to do…but not HOW

o   Nebulous objectives

o   Parallel missions

§  Concurrent objectives

·         4 – Good level design always teaches the player something new

o   One massive tutorial

o   Learn >>> Play >>> Challenge >>> Surprise

·         5 – Good level design is surprising

o   Keep thing fresh, break routine

o   Disrupt paradigms

o   Take risks

·         6 – Good level design empowers the player

o   Real-life sucks

o   Deliver the fantasy

o   Visible influence

·         7 – Good level design is easy, medium, AND hard

o   Rich vs. Reward

o   Dynamic

o   Layered approach

·         8 – Good level design is efficient

o   Modular

§  Many mechanic driven encounters strung together to create a level

o   Bi-directional

o   Non-linear

§  Explorations, goals, etc.

o   Relevant, give incentives

·         9 – Good level design creates emotion

o   Art = Specifically created to provoke emotion

o   Architectural theory

§  Window placement has an effect on emotions, etc.

o   Spatial empathy

§  Using space to create emotion

§  Work backwards

o   Lie to the player to get a reaction

·         10 – Good level design is driven by mechanics

o   Metaphysical medium

o   Showcase

o   Creative re-use