Busy Week

It's been a crazy week. First, I found out I'm a semi-finalist for the SXSW ScreenBurn Game Design Competition, which I'm really excited about. I'm hashing out a presentation for that I have to get sent in by Monday. I'm also working on a short single player level for Half-Life 2. I've got the whole thing blocked out and scripted, now I have to go back and add in textures , lighting, and a lot of tweaking. I hope to have that released for feedback soon. Look for it on SnarkPit and Interlopers in a few weeks. There's also school that started back up this week, work, and the internship, so that's soaked up all the rest of my free time. I certainly feel productive!

Woo! Solium Infernum!

Hurray! Solium Infernum is being released today! It's by Cryptic Comet, that also made the excellent Armageddom Empires. I got a chance to beta test this, and even got my name in the credits, very cool. Thanks to Vic Davis for giving me a chance to try it out and test it.
Solium Infernum is a turn-based strategy game set in Hell, and I've had a blast with it. The focus is more on diplomatic maneuvering and cloak and dagger moves than direct combat, and that's a plus for me. You're limited to only a few actions total per turn, which helps give every decision more weight. Do I want to move that unit to protect that place of power? Or buy that artifact I've had my eye on in the Bazaar? Or should I commit one of my precious moves to demanding tribute, so I can have enough souls to bid on that Praetor to give my legion that extra bit of power? It can be very tense in a good way, juggling three different objectives and jockeying for position.
I certainly recommend you at least try it. It can be a little inaccessible at first, but just give the manual a good read and keep it open the first few times you play, and you'll get the hang of it.

Saint's Row 2

I just got Saint's Row 2 for PC this week, since it's currently on sale at Direct2Drive for $5. And it's a blast, if more than a little unoptimized.

The story's nothing that will win awards, the 'taking back the streets' theme is a little tired. The humor's a little crude, but it's good enough to earn a cheap laugh or two. But it's damn fun to mess around in.

The best way to describe it is as a huge cartoon sandbox. You can pick trash, rocks and people up and use them as weapons. Clothing and cars are customizable to a surprising degree, down to the pattern on your tie or whether your shirt is tucked in or not. You're rewarded for everything - driving on the wrong side of the road, kicking people while they're down, flinging yourself from your car in a crash - everything. The rewards make just driving around the city satisfying, since you're never without something to do. No matter where you turn, there's a diversion, as the game calls them. And I've had more fun with these than I have with the actual missions.

The FUZZ diversion, where you impersonate a police officer for a COPS-like show, is exactly how the Vigilante missions in every GTA should have been. You're given random crimes to deal with as brutally as possible in order to get higher ratings for the show. The crimes range from riots to streaking to carjacking. The best part is the police join in on your side, and assist as you violate the civil liberties of criminals everywhere. The police attacking you in the GTA Vigilante missions always ruined the fun for me, even if that's a tad more 'realistic'. The variety of crimes, police siding with you, and generally higher level of mayhem make it a lot more entertaining.

The only problem I have with the FUZZ diversion is that the time limits are a little harsh, and I'm rather have more time to mess around, but you can restart with little to no hassle.

The performance issue is the only thing holding the game back for me - the stuttering while driving is terrible, although part of that might be my computer specs, a lot of it seems to be poor optimization for the PC.

Far Cry 2 Map: Dogon Arroyo

Yes, another Far Cry 2 multiplayer map. I just really got into a groove these past few weeks, I really like this editor. It's amazing to be able to make believable outdoor environments so easily, the terrain tools and collection system make it a breeze.



This one is set in a canyon lined with the ruins of a Dogon village, the focal point being a natural bridge that links the paths running along the tops of the canyon walls.
Players have three paths to choose from: through the canyon and under the rock bridge, or along either side of the canyon walls.
Through the canyon is the fastest, most direct route to the other base, but there is very little cover and enemies on the canyon walls can rain down withering fire from the heights and safely toss grenades from out of sight. But, unless someone comes to the very edge of the canyon wall and looks down, you'll most likely stay out of sight. Also, the canyon floor is covered with grass, and can easily become a death trap if both ends of the canyon catch fire if a Molotov or two is tossed down.
Atop the canyon walls, there's cover from the Dogon ruins along one side, and just bare rock along the other, although this bare side is slightly sunken, and it's easier to stay out of sight from the other side of the canyon wall. It's a fairly simple map, very straightforward, with lots of action in one central arena.


As far as my thought process goes, I was originally thinking of the tunnel from de_dust in Counter-Strike - a sunken area with commanding points above it on either side. The raised balcony directly across from the entrance on the CT side makes it into a sniper fest, but hopefully having a way to cross over the tunnel in my map will balance this out. I just wanted to see if I could take that one element and make a map out of it, and I think it turned out well.

Download Dogon Arroyo here at fc2maps.com, or search for "Dogon Arroyo" in the in-game map browser. Custom Far Cry 2 Maps seems to be being flooded with spam, so I'm on the lookout for a better community for Far Cry 2 mapping. As usual, I would really appreciate any feedback.

Far Cry 2 Map: A Bridge Between

Another map for Far Cry 2! This one I designed as a Capture the Diamond map from the start, and I tried to include an interesting central feature: the elevated wooden bridge that runs across the middle of the map, as seen in the screenshot above. This bridge helps to split the map between the two factions, and offers a risky but quick path across the map, and unsafe sniping spots, besides being a unique feature that hopefully people will remember, and a good central landmark. This map is a little tighter and more focused than Last Stop, my last attempt at a Far Cry 2 map, which I think had too much space between the spawns and objectives, so you should be able to get to the action faster in A Bridge Between.



One thing I noticed is there are sniping spots very near the spawns where the other team's diamond location is visible (on top of the oil tanks, and on top of the UFLL diamond building), which I think is alright. These sniping spots are very open with little cover, so they'd be hard to camp from, and there are plenty of alternate routes to and from the diamond, but not so many that you won't run into someone from the other team. The sniping spots make the player very visible, so you trade a good view for exposing yourself to fire from all over the map.
I playtested it a lot by myself, but I don't know anyone else with the game to playtest it with, so if you have any feedback, as usual I'd love to hear it. I'm confident that this is a better attempt than my last.


Download A Bridge Between here at fc2maps.com, or search for "A Bridge Between" in the in-game map browser.

Far Cry 2 Map: Last Stop

Besides playing Mercenaries 2, I've finished a Far Cry 2 multiplayer level: Last Stop. It supports all the game modes (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Diamond and Uprising), and is set in a valley hemmed by cliffs, with a railroad spur line running into it, terminating in an abandoned train station at the end of the valley, with a junkyard on the other side. It was designed with Capture the Diamond mode in mind.
As an aside, I really felt like working on maps with objectives for a change, as opposed to just straight deathmatch. Hence why the HL2:DM level I talked about in an earlier post didn't really get anywhere. As amazing a game Half-Life 2 is, the combat isn't all that compelling for me, with the gravity gun being the only unique feature, and that's more of a novelty than a core component of the combat. I just in the mood for making objective based maps, which Far Cry 2 has. Plus the combat feels solid, really tactile, like I'm actually sliding around in the dirt, tossing grenades and firing guns, it really succeeds in that respect.


Back to the map, I think I provided the right mix of cover and open space, with multiple paths to the objective and plenty of room to flank. I tried to keep the concept of "multiple paths" in mind, and I think I succeeded on a micro scale: from almost every piece of cover, there is more than one piece of cover that you can reach. You can brave the main road, out in the open with machine gun emplacements covering it from either end, or stick to the sides under the cliffs, using the long grass and trees for concealment. I was really feeling the train yard part of the map, and started by just laying out track and the station, and starting from there. The cliffs were added around the rail, kind of haphazardly, but I like the way it looks. I tried to leave openings so it seemed connected to a greater world, and wasn't just an arena. The warehouse end opposite the train station wasn't as inspired, but I think it works. I tried to keep everything spaced equally, positioning the spawns, diamonds and vehicles about the same distance apart for each side.


I haven't seen very many custom CTD maps with a lot of open terrain, and I'd love to try it out, but it's hard to find people to play with, and it's hard to get a map to stand out enough to get downloads, with clones of levels from other games taking the spotlight. But, I think I'm going to try another map, now that I'm settled into the editor, which is an absolute pleasure to work with. I only wish more level editors were more polished and straightforward to use. I really wish they would have released a single player editor as well, since Far Cry 2 cries out to be modded.

Download it here, or search for "Last Stop" in the in-game custom map browser. I'd love it if someone wanted to host the map, so I could get some more feedback. Enjoy!

Mercenaries 2: A Love/Hate Relationship

I've started playing Mercenaries 2 again, and I'm not entirely sure why. I've already beat it, but I started up a new campaign last week and I'm already halfway through. It's a terribly buggy unpolished game.

Examples of the bugs and general annoyances (Many, many examples):

• The soldiers yell out wrong phrases - whenever I hijack a helicopter, the male pilot I've just thrown to their death yells "I've killed the merc!" in a female voice with a heavy Jamaican accent.

• The random quips the AI soldiers make are usually wrong, repeated way too often, and very grating. If you make the mistake of picking up some UP mercs in your vehicle, you get to listen to them complain about the heat with the same two lines, every thirty seconds. I stopped the car, got out, and beat them to death in the street about the second time this happened.

• There's not much point in taking allies along anyway. They usually die in the first few seconds of an engagement. If you're lucky, they'll toss a grenade at your feet as they fall. If they're manning a gun that shoots explosive rounds, they have an unfortunate tendency to fire at point blank range, blowing up the vehicle they're riding in.
  

• There's almost no point in using guns when you can run up to someone and bash them in the face, instantly killing them. It's quicker than getting in a firefight and way, way overpowered.
  

• The AI is questionable at times - soldiers that spawn on rooftops love to jump off to their deaths. Enemy drivers will gladly step out of their vehicle and let you take it if you so much as point a gun at them. Your allies will continue to fire on a vehicle as you're hijacking it, sometimes destroying it just as you finish another painful hijacking quick time event.

• The quick time events are a huge pain. Especially on the PC, since instead of flashing the exact key you need to press, like "E" or "Shift", they flash an icon that represents the action the key is bound to. That extra second it takes to tell if that waving fist is the melee attack or use is one second too long. Some of the harder sequences for attack helicopters and heavy tanks take multiple tries for me, running through it until I have the sequence memorized long enough to forget it before the next hijacking attempt.
  

• Speaking of quick time events, if you fail one while trying to hijack a helicopter, afterward the pilot has a tendency to be sitting six feet to the right of his helicopter, floating in midair.

• There are some serious pop up issues - buildings and walls will pop up a few seconds after you've driven into them, trapping you inside. I failed at least one mission because of the pop up - the Pirates have you hauling rum in the back of a truck that can fall out as you drive. Only the rum spawned before the truck, so I instantly failed the mission since the cargo was crushed under the wheels before I could even get there.

• Machine guns, road blocks and obstacles can sometimes spawn six feet above the road. Enemies occasionally spawn inside rocks and buildings - especially frustrating if they're calling for reinforcements and it's impossible to kill them.

• Damage is inconsistent. Signs and small rocks will take a quarter of your vehicle's health if you bump into them, but you can slam through guardrails and telephone poles no problem. You take ten points of damage if you fall walking down stairs, but you can fall from a helicopter and live.

I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Most of these can be seen within a few minutes of play, should have been spotted in QA testing, and could be fixed with a simple patch. I would tell Pandemic about the bugs I've found, but there's no contact info anywhere on their official site - only a link to EA Support, which told me they don't answer questions unless they're about "technical" issues. The PC patch that has been released fixes only a handful of hardware compatibility issues and a few graphics tweaks, but all the above bugs still remain. Another patch was promised sometime last year, to no avail.
The reason I still care is that besides all these issues, there's still a fun game there. Blowing stuff up is fun, and when the game sticks to that, it can be a blast. But all these little quibbles add up, and they break the immersion factor and cause some serious frustration at times. The gameplay itself isn't perfect: there are way too many timed races and trials that flat out aren't fun, and the world isn't lively enough to just wander around in like you can in GTA 4 - there's not the sense of being in a living, breathing place, partially due to the stupid pedestrian dialogue and behavior and the dozens of bugs. There needs to be more battles taking place in the world, more action when you're not in a mission so there are more opportunities for the player to make their own fun. For me, that's the point of having a sandbox game, being able to decide what you want to do in the world without having it be in a structured mission format.
There were so many possibilities, but I'm afraid Pandemic either ran short on money and/or time to polish and test the game. I also hope they will open up to the community a little more. I understands that means having to filter through a bunch of pointless mail, but I'm sure there are jewels of feedback, especially when there are this many bugs.

If anyone knows a way to get in contact with someone at Pandemic or is at Pandemic, I'd love to hear from you. I'd be happy to provide more evidence of these bugs if there was any chance of getting another major patch for the PC version.

Game Design Challenge Brainstorming: The Crisis of Credit

Over at Game Career Guide, the biweekly Game Design Challenge is design a game that explains the global credit crisis in a fun way. I've been brainstorming this for a couple hours, and I can't think of a good way to approach it.

First off, there are so many variables involved, it seems difficult to pin the cause of the crisis down. The video they linked breaks it down, but even then there appear to be many causes: the low interest rates made T-bills unappealing and borrowing cheap, which caused lots of speculation and use of leverage. Then the demand for securitized mortgages caused investors to call for more mortgage backed securities, which caused mortgage brokers to offer mortgages to high-risk borrowers, who for the most part defaulted after being led into getting into mortgages they couldn't repay or lying about their income and getting a loan anyway. These defaults led to lots of houses being on the market, and this along with the housing bubble bust caused house values to plummet, which made the mortgage based securities basically worthless.

There's much more to it, but even this simplified version seems hard to turn into a game. I'm still thinking of it from a simulation perspective, and I'm not sure that would work, since it is such a complicated issue. It just seems if you're trying to teach about it, there should be some sort of lesson. And since it's a game, there should be some sort of meaningful choice, some decisions to be made by the player. And who should the player be? An investment banker? A person trying to buy a house? A mortgage broker? Each one of these in turn? Or maybe an omniscient view, where they can see where everything when wrong? What could the player have control over that would be interesting, what interesting decisions could they make from these viewpoints?

I was originally thinking of having the player follow the path of the mortgage, starting as the person buying a house, shopping for a mortgage, seeing their choices, then becoming a mortgage broker trying to sell the mortgages, so on and so forth until they zoomed out and saw the whole picture. But the decisions at each point are basically automatic - do I buy a mortgage based security or not - or really boring - who wants to have to shop for a mortgage in a game? And then what would each of the steps teach you?

Maybe the key is to break the crisis down to the root cause. This cause seems to be a lack of transparency - homeowners didn't know they wouldn't be able to pay back the mortgages, and investors didn't know this either. None of people involved seemed to see the crisis coming, or didn't care as long as they were getting money. So how lack of transparency be a game mechanic? Hiding information in a game is usually frowned upon - it's frustrating because the player doesn't know what's going on. Can that rule be broken for the sake of teaching? And was data really hidden from the actors involved, or did they willingly deceive themselves into thinking it would all be ok? And if that's the case, can a game replicate that same feeling - where you tell yourself everything will be ok, even though it's going to end in disaster?

I'll have to sleep on it. I know there's a solution, I'm just having a hard time brainstorming it. But the process so far has shown me that educational games can be hard - to be able to teach complex subjects through doing, not showing or telling. I can visulize the issue, I could tell someone else about it now, but I'm not sure how to make it into a game. Maybe some research into other educational games is in order.

Twitter

I finally started a Twitter account(@samuelcom), at the urging of Brenda Brathwaite (@bbrathwaite). Well, she didn't tell me personally, but her blog post did, and I was contemplating it for a while. Don't expect a blow by blow account of my every action, though. You should get one too. Bandwagon, woo!

Brainstorming for a HL2:DM Level

I've started brainstorming for another HL2:DM level, and this excellent article, "Basics of effective FPS encounter design" from Fullbright has helped me frame criticism of my first published level design attempt, dm_light_industrial. Unfortunately, apparently somewhere in the Snarkpit update, the comments were lost, but one that I still remember was that there were too many dead ends - basically that the level didn't flow, and it was a little generic, which I have to agree with. I didn't really understand the too many dead ends comments, but I think I do after reading Steve's post. It's geared more towards single player map design, but it still helped.
His article gives three basic guidelines:

1. Varied, clustered cover
2. Circular navigability
3. Observability

Summed up, hallways make for uninteresting combat areas and there needs to be more than the binary choice of moving forward or back, with alternate paths that encourage both players to take risks, and the players need to be able to see these choices, and start in a position where they can survey the layout and make their decisions.
Unfortunately, I think dm_light_industrial failed in all three concepts to some degree or another. The map is basically hallways, broken up with rooms at the end, with a few hubs. There are quite a few areas that dead end, and I see now these areas are deathtraps, with no way out and no choices besides fighting your way out, which can be frustrating.
Also, there is no central focus to the level, the one "arena" area is too small and too hard to navigate, with very little cover. It needs to be much bigger, with more hiding spots and cover, and pathways all around the outside of the focal point. I think my next attempt needs to include at least one of these arena areas, a lot more cover, no tight hallways, and a compelling theme. I also need to playtest with other players a lot more, I only got a chance to play it with one person, and just that helped quite a bit.
I'll have to brainstorm a bit more, but I will probably have a rough outline sketched up in the near future. If anyone plays the map and has any more tips, I'd be grateful.

PS: Steve Gaynor's "make cool shit and show it off" entry is also worth a read.