I’m finally done with Synthrally. I might patch the game if some outrageous bug rears its head in the next month or so, and commercially, the game is probably going to die in obscurity like 80% of games that are released on Steam every day, but for now, I’m done. I’m finally free, and I’ve been waiting for this moment for nearly a year now.
This is a post explaining how I implemented the menu transition visuals seen in this video:
In This Post:
- What my process was in implementing these visuals, and how I converted the original idea to reality
- Explanation of the complex 3D math involved in the menu visuals
- Breakdowns of the menu transitions and idle animations
- Brief videos showcasing both of the above
- Possible improvements that could be made / features that could be added
Let’s get right into it!
Part 1: The Idea
My vision for Synthrally’s visuals is to invoke the feeling of a futuristic arcade machine. Since the very beginning of my visual overhaul, I wanted the menus to have presence; as if they were actually there on a physical machine, and not just UI that were sprites just billboarded to the screen. To that effect, I had this idea of the buttons being embedded into this background grid that had horizontal wipes whenever there were menu changes, as if the buttons were being created and destroyed as the menu switched.
I was inspired a bit by the transitions in Heroes of the Storm; when you get to the hero select screen in that game, a shockwave travels through a grid from the bottom of the screen to the middle, and the tiny bases that the heroes stand on flip over in that direction as they materialize on the grid. I felt that this gave those stands and the background pieces around them a degree of physicality, since you can see that they are clearly 3d objects and not just an infinite plane with a tiling texture on it. Realizing that I could merge this concept with the hexagon lattice I had experimented with as a level background, I took some time to break down the separate features that I would need to accomplish this into separate items on Trello cards, seen below:
With the feature broken down into parts, I immediately started work on getting the base parts functioning first. Read More…
I got selected as a Platinum Winner of GDC’s Game Narrative Review contest! There are only 3 Platinum winners (and a lot of submissions), but I’m one of them! Below is the narrative review I did of Darkest Dungeon, and how it uses game mechanics in tandem with narrative to give the player an authentic, stressful experience of the macabre and the mysterious. Scroll past the poster to get to the actual essay!
Indie Games with Vision
As is the standard of this series, we expand upon previous knowledge by perusing multiple examples of the aforementioned topic. That concept is extra important here, though; the previous two examples show very similar games with arguably conventional approaches. Darkest Dungeon’s main method of dragging you into the experience is based on the art, dialogue, and flavor of the world, in addition to gameplay. This is by no means a standard; some games can be all gameplay and no story and still get their target experience across. The most important thing to take out of this is the “focused vision” concept; the idea that anything that isn’t necessary for your idea need not even be in the game. With that in mind, let’s begin.
This is probably my best game-design related writing so far, as the topic not only relates to a game project I’ve done in the past, but also just resonates very strongly with my personal approach to creativity in general. This is also the first topic I’m splitting into two posts, as they’re getting altogether too lengthy to keep in one post. This post covers
- the difference between making approachable games and games that give the user a specific “experience”
- the concept of having a “target vision” that makes creating such games easier
- and how targeting an indie market makes the difficulties of making/selling a visionary game disappear.
Art is defined by “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, (…) producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power”. Painting, writing, music, plays, movies; nearly all art is created for the appreciation of the viewer, and in this way, games are no different. Where games stand out, however, is in the potential strength of user experience; this is due, in no small part, to several of the aforementioned creative mediums all naturally contributing to the sum total of a game. In games, everything that is presented to the player is ultimately a product of the player’s actions; this automatically makes any game resonate with the viewer more strongly than other mediums, as it is something they are actively driving (and experiencing). Due to this, games can become very engrossing; the possibility for the player to do vastly different things based on their approach to the game, in addition to the game’s rich universe, leads to the possibility of the player becoming immersed in the game itself. An interesting byproduct of this comes in the form of “watercooler stories”. Watercooler stories, in games, can be described as a moment where a player does a notably unique thing as a product of the wide range of possibilities inherent in the game, and has a story to share as the result of that. Read More…
This is a post about fighting games and the underlying mechanical systems that make combos possible. This post covers
- the systems required to allow for combos
- several different conceptual approaches to a combo system
- and the macro-level “resource utilization” concepts that are needed for combos to exist.
Definition of a Combo
So what is a combo? Rather simply put, a combo is any sequence of skills or abilities (we’ll improve on this definition at the end of the article, but it’s a good starting point). An important point to make, though, is that this is the videogame definition of a combo; this definition has no bearing on fast food menu combos or the like. In video games, combos are traditionally used to produce a greater effect than the individual moves that go into the combo, whether it’s just increased damage, or the consistency required to pull off a difficult move. As a result of the rather broad definition of a combo, there are a few misconceptions associated with it. One of the more important things to distinguish is the difference between combos and strings. Read More…
Hello! This is the start of a series I’ve been wanting to do about case studies on certain mechanics and concepts in game design. I personally find it very useful to gather a lot of references to things I would like to emulate before starting work on a project, and this series would be very along those lines, just in a considerably more formal sense. This post is about:
- utilizing synergy in game design when concepting
- tying it into other aspects of the game, like art, sound, and narrative
- and using those tie-ins to make additions feel more natural
The Concept of Synergy
People use a lot of different methods when it comes to approaching game design. Good design is an ephemeral thing; difficult to consistently grasp, especially with the same methods. When trying to form the foundations of a game, people often use the concept of pillars (different from the 4 pillars of game design); the imagery behind the word conveys strong support, as the common pillars of a game support the “high concept” of a game idea. This does not necessarily mean things like visual appeal and audio appeal are independent from the gameplay. This word use also implies, however, that the gameplay features core to the game are entirely separate, which (as in life) isn’t always true; a different design approach that embodies the concept of core features being connected is the concept of synergy. In tandem with pillars, synergy can be likened to support beams connecting one or more pillars, using something they both have in common to help support one another. Synergy is about having core concepts play off each other in the pursuit of a more unified game experience.
There are some games whose features are very independent from one another; Angry Birds is one solid example; some strong words that come to mind are “cute“, “accessible“, “physics-based gameplay“, “rewarding“, “intuitive” (and arguably “marketable“). None of these gameplay pillars really influence each other; the intuitive physics-based puzzles play off of the accessible control scheme, but that’s about it; the cute character design does not consistently inform you of what each bird does, nor does it tell you what the game is about. “Angry Birds” essentially gives you no information about the content of the game, aside from the fact that birds (disabled birds, at that) will be somehow involved.
Can you determine anything about the gameplay in Angry Birds from the titles or splashes? Are they even relevant to gameplay?
Compare this to another fairly simple and popular mobile game; Temple Run, for instance. Were I to tell someone that title, and ask them what the point of the game was, they could easily correctly guess by just restating the title. In Temple Run, this theme is “Indiana Jones Running Away From a Boulder”, which gives a mental picture that perfectly matches the picture of the gameplay itself. So not only does it provide the perfect setting for the “endless runner” type game (giving a very motivating intro of “Take the Idol”, immediately followed by the player running away from whatever may be chasing him), it also gives hints to the kind of obstacles you might be facing, namely those that Indiana Jones might have faced in his archaeological escapades at any point in any of his movies: falling bridges, traps, narrow gaps, long jumps, etc.; everything about the game, from the art/setting, to the gameplay, to the soundtrack (constant tribal drums) is tied into the previously mentioned main concept. If we look at Temple Run with the pillars concept, the main pillars are a little difficult to pin down; “endless runner” is one, and “adventure movie-inspired” is another, alongside “arcade-style high scores“, but it’s difficult to point out a feature and have it only work for one of the three; thusly, Temple Run serves as a good example of having synergistic gameplay features.
Used correctly, synergy can help immerse the player, make the game experience more unique, and unite the game itself in a single core concept. However, synergy can also be a difficult thing to apply; sometimes a game can be too large to tie ALL of its aspects, or perhaps the core gameplay and setting of a game are vastly different, making it difficult to connect the two. A good example of a game that accomplishes this is Metroid Prime.
It’s been a month after GDC, and things have calmed down enough here at DigiPen for me to able to take a step back and reminisce about it. It was the first GDC I’ve ever attended, and while my excitement for conventions has been dulled due to years of attending PAX East, it was still far more interesting than I thought it would be. I’ve wanted to do a “postmortem” style post for a while now, as I took a large amount of myriad info and experience away from it.
My preparations for GDC were repeatedly rushed and panicked; I had a lot of repeated good fortune, and as a result of this I was able to go to GDC for the whole week as a CA while staying with my brother in Oakland (for free). I applied to the CA program in the fall, and after a fellow student (and good friend of mine) gave me a recommendation, I got accepted. While looking for housing, I told my brother that I was going to GDC, and he replied that he was as well, and that his apartment was only a 30 minute train ride from the convention center. After realizing that I was indeed going, I hastily spent an entire week producing business card designs, and finally came up with one that I liked quite a bit. I spent a large amount of money getting them shipped to me as fast as possible on good card stock, and immediately after that, I was off to San Fransisco.
Being a CA was an awesome experience; I got to meet a lot of awesome people, and the work could barely be classified as such; I oversaw a lot of panels, scanning badges and briefing speakers at panels I would’ve attended anyway; being an audio engineer, I mostly attended audio panels (as there were a lot), and got to see some really awesome tech displayed. I also attended some leadership-centered panels, and a few about statistics, data gathering, and psych applied to game design. I got a lot out of my GDC experience, got to talk to a lot of crazy intelligent people with a lot of experience, and thoroughly enjoyed it all.
That’s all I have to say about what I did, and now I get to talk about the various things I took away from the conference. I’m not going you give you details on the tech shown at the conference, because I’d have to understand it completely to be able to teach you about it, which would be rather difficult, and I’d also ultimately just be plagiarizing from them, which is kind of illegal. I’ll mostly just be sharing work tips, fun facts, and interesting ideas that I got from panels or from talking to industry professionals. First things first;
Oh man, reader. After taking the initial plunge, reviewing data, histograms, values, ratios, and more, I’ve gotten much more excited about the prospect of continuing this research project. I’ll do a quick good news bad news, and readjust our goals after explaining a lot of the data gathered for this step.
Bad news: sample size is a serious, serious problem, and this is more complicated than previously thought.
Good news: There are ways to mitigate sample size error (and in doing so, we can also solve some of the further complications that have arisen).
So, before I get into the nitty gritty, let’s talk about some data:
- There are only 5 non-tribal, no modifier minions in the entire game. These 5 are Wisp, Magma Rager, Chillwind Yeti, Boulderfist Ogre, and War Golem.
- Including tribals, there are only 14 no modifier minions in the entire game. (No modifier means no card text.)
With that in mind, in order to have a large enough sample size, I’ve introduced minions with two extra variables: Tribals (or Creature Types), and Taunt. With these two categories, the number of minions we can draw data from rises to 25. This is still a small number, but it’s better than the 14 we would normally be stuck with. Also, there are some precautions I can take to make sure they don’t cross-contaminate the data. Overall, introducing these extra variables is fine, because they are the two easiest to break down (both logically and relative to the data). But before I can explain why that is, I have to explain something entirely different, something I didn’t expect to have to do for another step, and that’s the value of a card. Read More…
I’d like to start by explaining exactly what I’m planning to do with this series.
This is a series of articles (and accompanying videos, given time) focusing on the concept of determining the “mana value” of certain stats and effects on Hearthstone cards, using the mana value as a metric.
When I say metric, I mean using mana in the same way you would measure the height of something in meters; the meter is an established standard, and by measuring something in terms of that standard you can have a uniform method of measuring anything.
This is definitely not about measuring the meta value or potential value of a card; both of those determined mostly by the standards of popular play, which is difficult to be objective about. The questions that kind of study would answer are things like the worth of running an extra BGH to counter handlock, or a Kezan Mystic to counter Echo Mage. Interesting things, yes, but not what I’m after; this series is about trying to be as objective as possible, entirely through statistics or data comparison. Through these things we can arrive at an approximate value of the stats of minions, or certain effects on cards; with the knowledge gained from this article, one would be able to measure whether changing Argent Commander from a 4/3 to a 4/2 was a statistically significant change to the card’s value (and therefore too hard or too light), or be able to create an entirely new card with an appropriately balanced effect for its mana value.
This is a study that has a rather hefty amount of variables, and there are certainly going to be outliers that test my ability to objectively measure things. I wholly expect to be stumped when attempting to break down
- why Magma Rager may have “good stats”, number wise, but is objectively one of the worst cards in the game
- why Injured Blademaster is nearly a Priest must-have, but no one else runs him
- how to judge random effects in any consistent manner
- and the value of card draw.
