Ever since then we have both been compiling a list of these rules – with notes to remind us why it’s a good idea not to break them.  We even made a presentation together about them for the University of Texas’ EGaDS.  In our presentation we decided to use the “J’accuse” approach of highlighting a game that didn’t follow a particular rule (this is something that I’ve continued with this write-up).

Since all this “hard” work would go to waste if I didn’t put them somewhere for other people to read I thought I’d write them up and post them to the Internets for posterity.

Introduction

The first rule is “there are no rules to game design” – Noah Falsteen can go fuck himself.

As much as you try and create a roadmap to the ultimate game you will realize that the landscape of every single game is different – the best you will ever be able to do is create some signpost which might point people in the right direction.

Why are these the “rules of game design”?

I wish we had a better name than the “rules of game design” for that reason – rules implies that if you follow them then everything will be okay.  It’s very possible that the rules are wrong  (I don’t think so – but what do I know?) and they don’t just apply to game design but all of game development – so really the “rules of game design” is just about the most misleading name ever.

Maybe they should be considered the “Habits of good Game Developers” – but that doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue.  So until I get a book deal or solve this little conundrum these are the “rules of game design”.

Oh … and before I forget – the “rules” have no particular order – Johnny and I disagree on the order of importance so they are presented in no particular order.  Which you think is most important is up to you.

Design for the game, not for yourself

From the beginning, you have to know the game you’re making, and that includes knowing the genre, the “hook”, and the target audience. That might seem obvious, but you also have to restrain from adding things that appeal to yourself if they don’t fit the above.

There are a lot of cool sounding ideas out there – but not all of them are right for your game’s design.  Just because you like Idea X, doesn’t mean you should add it to design Y without thinking through how it will affect the end result of the design.  A super complicated engine customization system won’t magically improve a cartoon Kart Racing game.  Look beyond your own gaming tastes and think about how your idea matches up to the design you are working on.

In addition, design within your limitations – take what you have and do things people never expected, try to be original and daring with what you have.  Push it as far as you can, get it to do things that it was never really meant to do.  That is the challenge of design – and the is how you continue to make your job fun and rewarding.

J’accuse : Braid
Jonathan Blow said that when he made Braid he made sure he didn’t repeat a puzzle – and that Braid “has no fat”.  To Blow, repeating content is bad thing, he sees it as unnecessary or even lazy hence the “fat” comment, however the issue with this is that Braid never really makes a player feel that they’ve learnt a lesson from a previously beaten challenge.  The player never has a chance to feel superior because they never come across a puzzle that they are familiar with.

Kill your Darlings

The hardest skill for any designer to learn is to be their own harshest critic.  If something is struggling to work, or is just too much work to support – cutting it from the design is easier if it comes from you than if you are told to do it.  Learn to look at everything you make with a detached point of view – can you justify to yourself the cost in making sure this feature/mission/idea carries on?  Sometimes the best option is to admit defeat – and that’s easier if you decide when to do that, rather than being forced to it.

Even if you created the perfect system or idea for the game, if it turns out that the idea either doesn’t work as is, ends up not testing well, or has simply run out of resource time at the end of the project, you must be able to at least change the idea to fit the end product, and you also have to be willing to scrap it entirely.

J’accuse: The Incredible Hulk
There were many ideas that should have been cut that weren’t – this means that valuable development time was spent on features that really didn’t add to the general play experience.  Make sure your design focuses on the key features – having two or three polished and fun features is better than having fifteen half-baked or poorly implemented ones.

Begin with the end in mind

This is shameless borrowed from Stephen Covey and his “7 Habits of High Successful People” – because it is a truism that can be applied to just about any field, and is something we all tend to forget.  Here is this rule summed up in a question:

Why?

What are you trying to make?  Do you have a vision of what that thing will be?  If so, make sure to include as many of the details as possible.  The clearer you are about what you are asking people to do, the closer the end result will be to your “ideal”.  Inspire people with your design – make sure they fully understand it, as it helps them build upon the idea and make it better.  Think it through – think about how the “end user” will experience it and what they will see, hear and do with it.

All these are questions you should be able to answer, or at least have tried to answer for yourself.  How do we know that the journey is worth taking if we don’t know what the destination might be.  Bottom-Up Design is expensive and rarely produces good results – think of it like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle without looking at the picture – you’ll eventually put it together, but the time and effort you waste could have been avoided if you knew what the picture looked like.

J’accuse : Duke Nukem Forever
Bottom-up game design rarely works. The best example of this is the ironic title, Duke Nukem: Forever. Essentially, you’re introducing feature-creep before you even get into the end of production.

Ideas don’t work unless you do

When I worked at Rockstar San Diego, this quote was scrawled on a whiteboard after someone found it on a Bazooka Joe wrapper.   I’ve used it ever since as a reminder that the real “magic” in game development comes from hard work.

Ideas are cheap – anyone can have an idea, but turning that idea in to a real workable concept is the hardest part of being a developer.  Title does not imply entitlement.  No matter what you are called at your job – if you have an idea, be prepared to work on seeing it through.  You can’t delegate an idea and expect people to just get it right – you have to work with them to help them understand why it’s a good idea, what shape or form it should take and how it should feel to the end user.  The more involvement and effort you personally put in to realizing the idea – the closer the execution of that idea will be to what you wanted.

This isn’t about working long hours and “quality of life” and all that jazz – it’s about involving yourself in the development of your ideas.  Valve has a rule that “whoever designs something, builds it” (I got that quote of a message board so I can’t give you a reference to it) – which is a sensible way to think about all game design and development.     You could also draw parallels to the “Ham and Eggs” principal in SCRUM development.  You should have total commitment to your idea (or design) … rather than just “contributing” it.

As someone far smarter than I said:  “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration” – Thomas Edison

J’accuse: Shigeru Miyamoto
The greatest Game Designer ever – stopped design directing games to concentrating on PR and Management duties within Nintendo EAD.  Now he supplies ideas to his development teams and it’s down to others to realize those ideas.  While Miyamoto is still mildly involved in the development of these games – they lack the level of polish and charm associated with his best work because he is unable to provide with enough of his attention.

Fit a story into the game; don’t fit the game in to the story

Even though stories are a big part of many games, especially in the RPG and Adventure genres, it is rare when a game fit into a story works out.   Movie license games are perfect examples of story being more important than gameplay.

J’accuse : Metal Gear Solid 4
Great movie – I hope they make a game of it someday!  The best moment in MGS4 was playing Metal Gear Solid 1.  Don’t put the coolest parts of your games in cutscenes – let the player do cool stuff.  The Raiden fights Vamp sequence is a typical annoying MGS4 moment – one of the coolest fights in the game is going on while the player is shooting Geckos.  The player’s attention is on staying alive not watching the fight.  The only bit of this sorry game that stayed with after the credits rolled was the “Hyper Wave corridor” sequence – and while it was simple a button mashy “quicktime event” – it was interactive, unlike about 90% of that game.

Be the master of your own destiny

Do not let other people make decisions for you, look for feedback early.  Make decisions yourself – force people to agree.  Be the Shepherd, not part of the flock.  Even a decision that is wrong is better than no decision.  Be clear and be decisive.

Remember the designers’ adage: “It’s better to beg for forgiveness, rather than for permission”.  No effort is ever wasted – take the initiative and try and make something happen on your own.  Often if the work has already been done – who is going to throw it away?

J’accuse: You
Don’t be lazy!

Don’t be a dick

When it comes to design, be forgiving.  People do not play games to be punished – they come to be challenged, and more importantly entertained.  Always play fair – and if you are going to punish the player, make sure they understand why.

Think of this rule having two messages – one for the game, and the other for the game’s development

In a game, don’t be cruel to the player. Awesome moments should never have an anticlimax unless the anticlimax is the moment itself.   Skill challenges should never only have one very precise, perfect solution if the player’s progression depends on succeeding.   People play games to be challenged and entertained, not punished.  People like to finish games – in fact if you think about your favorite games – how many of those have you beaten?  The answer is probably all of them.  It is a typical rookie error to tune your game too be too difficult – if in doubt, err on the side of easier.

Game development is a team venture, and a subjective one at that.   Inevitably, you won’t please everyone, but that doesn’t mean that the opposing opinions and concerns aren’t valid.   Teamwork relies on give-and-take.

J’accuse: Ninja Gaiden 2
While being an exhilarating ride through the world of Ryu Hayabusa – it suffers from poor camera development and overly aggressive AI.  Many players will die from enemies attacking off screen or from overly aggressive AI being well … overly aggressive.  While some might argue that is exactly what they want from Ninja Gaiden 2 – our goal is to provide entertainment to all of our customers.  Each one we frustrate is someone who  wont recommend your game to their friends – and thanks to EA we know that’s the most effective form of advertising.

Play Games!

Arguably the most ignored and yet the most important rule – in any industry, you keep abreast of the current trends and direction of the trade. Fashion designers look at other new lines, movie directors watch both mainstream and independent films.   Game designers must play games to evaluate what works and what doesn’t in current games. Even in bad games, there is often one nugget that can be salvaged. It’s also much easier to convey ideas to the team if there is a base comparison.

Expose yourself to new ideas.  Play anything that catches your attention.  You never know when you will find a “diamond in the rough” – even the most mediocre games have important lesson for you to learn.  Don’t just play games within your favorite genre(s) – try some weird Japanese puzzle games, or a super detailed Eastern European war sim now and again.

Use Xbox Live or PSN to download demos – you can usually get a good feel for a game and it’s systems from a demo.  Watch movies, read books, play board games or Collectible Card Games – ideas can come from anywhere.  At Rockstar a lot of the mission ideas for their games were inspired by documentaries from similar subject matters.  Don’t just rehash tried and true formulas – go looking for inspiration in the strangest places.

Use Rental services like Gamefly and Netflix to save on having to pay full price for things.  Pay attention to forums to find out what the underground or cult hits are and take a look and see why they are “successful”.

… And so ends Part One.  I’m reserving the right to do Part Two much further down the line – because I’m sure there are more design related maxims to be discovered, but you often have to be in the “heart of darkness” of game production to be able to see them properly.

Oh Rez, how I have missed thee so … some game design trivia – Dead Eye mode in Red Dead Revolver was based on the Targeting System from Rez, and the “bullet time” of Max Payne.

Here’s a YouTube video of some gameplay from the DreamCast version:

Stolen from the NeoGAF thread about the annoucement:

Cult Classic Shooter Rez™ Comes Back To Life
On the Xbox LIVE® Arcade

Tokyo, Japan (Sept. 12, 2007) – Tokyo-based video game developer Q Entertainment, Inc. today announced that the critically acclaimed video game title “Rez” is being developed for the Xbox LIVE Arcade with a target release date of Q1 2008. Originally released by SEGA in Japan in 2001 for the Dreamcast and PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, followed by a North American release only for the PlayStation 2 and European release on both platforms in early 2002, Rez was developed by SEGA’s United Game Artists (“UGA”) division. Tetsuya Mizuguchi, former president of UGA and current chief creative officer of Q Entertainment, conceptualized and produced the fast-action shooter, which is known to be one of the most unique, offbeat and eccentric games ever released.

“We are excited to announce that Rez will be given a new life, this time in digital form,” said Mizuguchi. “The game will be presented in hi-definition and will be accessible to those who did not have a chance to experience Rez the first time around. Personally, Rez has been and will always be a lifelong concept. I hope to take what I learned from the experience of creating the original game and look forward to taking it to a whole new level in the future.”

Carrying the slogan “Rez will open your senses…let’s go to synaesthesia,” the dynamic, total integration of visual presentation, sound and player’s input provided a rich aesthetic experience that was difficult to describe in words. While the basic gameplay was simple, critics called Rez “the ultimate audiovisual experience” and emphasized that “it must be seen and heard to be fully understood.” The old-school vector style graphics, sensory response and beat synchronization presented by the game set aside the title apart from the rest of the games that were released during that time.

Rez consisted of five different levels, each with its own unique visual theme and style, musical track and a boss battle at the end. The game also featured several different modes and plenty of unlockable elements, giving it a higher replay value. To further enhance the Rez experience, artists including Coldcut, Adam Freeland, Joujouka, Ken Ishii and Keiichi Sugiyama (SEGA’s Wave Master) contributed tracks to the game.

Rez HD (title pending) for the Xbox LIVE Arcade will be a direct port of the original, delivered in hi-definition and 5.1 surround sound. Further details on Rez HD for the Xbox LIVE Arcade including pricing will be revealed at a later date.

About Q ENTERTAINMENT, Inc.
Formed in 2003, Tokyo-based Q ENTERTAINMENT, Inc. creates, produces, and consults in digital entertainment content across multiple game consoles, PC broadband and mobile units. It is best known for their critically acclaimed music and luminary action puzzle game series “Lumines,” which was released worldwide in 2004/2005 for the PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system and has now developed into mobile (“Lumines Mobile”), Xbox Live Arcade (“Lumines Live!”) and PlayStation®2 (“Lumines Plus”) platforms. Q ENTERTAINMENT’s impressive line-up also includes the action puzzle title “Meteos” for the Nintendo DS™ and fantasy action title “Ninety-Nine Nights” for the Xbox 360™.

Founded by principal game creator and Chief Creative Officer Tetsuya Mizuguchi and industry veteran and Chief Executive Officer Shuji Utsumi (Sony Computer Entertainment America, SEGA, Disney), Q ENTERTAINMENT is comprised of experienced designers, programmers, and producers. Q ENTERTAINMENT collaborates with other creators, artists and development studios in Japan and overseas. With a large network and enthusiasm, Q ENTERTAINMENT is always on the “Quest for the future entertainment,” anticipating the trends and changes in times to come and brings new value to the game industry with fresh new content. More information can be found on the Internet at http://www.qentertainment.com.

So you want to be a Game Designer?

I’ve been asked a number of times over the last few months about becoming a Game Designer. So here is my little guide to dipping your toe in to the swimming pool of Game Design and seeing if it’s warm enough to dive in to.

Lesson 1: Do you like games?

I mean games pural – not just one game or one kind of games. Have you played a wide variety of different game types on a variety of different game machines? I ask because you need to expose yourself to as many games as you can. Fortunately we live in a world of Xbox Live and Playstation Network, where it is trivially easy to download demos and try all sorts of games without have to commit $20+ dollars for the benefits of trying skate. or Beautiful Katamari. Websites like Gametrailers.com allow you see actual gameplay footage which is sometimes the next best thing to actually playing the game. Do yourself a favor and play more games – play anything you can get your hands on … and here’s the tricky bit – analyze it. Why is Call of Duty 2 better than Hour of Victory? What is the difference between skate. and Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground? More importantly why do you think the designers/developers made the decisions they did?

Lesson 2: The only way to learn is to do …

Much like with Lesson 1, we live in a time and age where it is very easy to get your hands on the actual software used to make shipped games. Games like Half-Life 2, Warcraft 3 and Unreal Tournament ship with the same tools the company used to make the entire game. With a few simple Google searches it is easy to find some tutorials that will get almost anyone making their own content for those games. Hell, there are a ton of console games that ship with really simple but effective game editors – Tony Hawk, Far Cry Instincts, Stuntman Ignition and Timesplitters - all shipped with tools that allow you to make your own content for the game.

So Lesson 2 is make a level – I don’t care what game it is, or what genre it is in – just make a level. I don’t care if you copy a level from the game itself (as long as you actually make it) – the important thing is to understand how games are put together. Just what does it take to layout an environment in 3D? How do you get the Space Marine to say a witty line every time an alien is killed? What is needed to allow the player to trick all the way between the half-pipe and the taxi?

All these questions were asked by the designers when these games were made – luckily for you, you have access to the tools to realize these things. The designers of the game didn’t always have the same access to those tools – they had to ask for them or get features added so that they could do what they saw only in their mind’s eye. Think about what you wish the tools did, or what you want to do in the game engine. Make a note of those ideas – post them on a forum, or look for ways to make those things happen anyway.

Seriously, if you want to save yourself a $80 thousand dollar course at one of these “faux” Game Design courses that places like Digipen or Full Sail – invest in a decent PC and a copy of Half-Life 2. You will learn more from trying to make levels, from scripting with an actual working game language, and by trying to push the game engine in new directions than listening to some half-arsed academic prattle on for hours and whose only game designs live on the pages of some shitty blog like this one.

A nice side benefit is that having examples of previous level/game work is the easiest way to get into a game company – I always want to see signs that a potential candidate has had the enthusiasm and commitment to actually make something. I’m not really interested in your written game ideas (sorry – but frankly the ideas part of this job is the easiest bit), I’m interested in the bit where you were so excited by your idea you committed to make it in to a reality – even if it didn’t turn out as well as you’d hoped. I want to see in the designers I work with evidence that they have worked within the constraints of a game’s design and/or engine, that they have tried and presumably failed a number of times before they got the result they wanted, and most importantly – they didn’t give up when things got tricky.

Lesson 3: Go to school!

Wha-what? I thought you just bagged on those expensive rip-off Game Design colleges? I did, however a good college education can be the dividing line between your resume making it past the HR department, and your resume making it to the top of the pile. Don’t think that a Game Design course is a magic path to seeing your cyber punk RPG based on the Diary of Anne Frank turn in to reality. Choose a course that will keep you excited and interested in the multiple years you’ll be at college – a good course in writing, or art or psychology are just as useful and able to get your a design job.

I work with a number of people who didn’t go to college and got in to games via testing or intern programs. These are perfectly valid routes to becoming a game designer, however remember we live in an ever-changing world and you may not be a Game Designer forever. Having a degree – just like having a good show reel of work – shows a commitment to bettering yourself. It shows that you could take the X years of college and turn in good work against a strict timetable, that you can listen and communicate effectively, and that you can probably shotgun a can of beer. That pain in the arse degree might just get you in to a cushy job working on Human Interface Design, or persuade Walmart that you are the perfect person to welcome people to their store. Having a degree is better than not having one – and trust me on this – the debt you will accrue will disappear quicker than you think. My degree was the sole reason I got an interview for my first Game Design job (God Bless you Psygnosis!)

Lesson 4: Learn to communicate.

The best lessons I have learnt as a game designer were not the little tricks of the trade like “Keep it simple, stupid” or “Less is more” (though both should be tattooed to the undersides of your eyelids) – but rather the things I learnt about writing and communicating with people.

Always write your idea down – it serves as a chance to be your own critic, and as a place to record the idea in your head before you forget it. It will show you the weaknesses in your idea a lot quicker and a lot sooner than going straight to the game editor or to the artist/coder you are working with. Learn when you are writing to “sketch” your idea out, on a very high level put down your central ideas. For example:

lvl_fort – Red Dead Revolver

• opening - middle of a battle, gatling gun on wall, escape battlefield
• middle - search the ruins for enemies, hear cries from the battle outside, enemies surprise player by appearing from strange places (climb over walls, dropping from holes in roof)
• end - reach gatling gun, turn it on enemies, fight boss

Each one of those comments is an element of your design – these will help you decide what is and isn’t important about your idea. Whether you are working on a level design, or on describing a feature of your game – breaking it down to the fundamental elements is your goal. It will allow you to structure your document effectively so you know what you need to describe, and for the potential audience it will allow them to quickly see what information is relevant to them. A well organized document is half the battle.

The other half is pictures. Recently on Hulk, I received my first bit of praise about some documentation – this was documentation that the Game Director had seen several times before, but the difference this time was that I added a lot of images that visualized the concepts that the text describes. The work I had done previously was 30 pages of headings and text, what I turned in recently was 45 pages of pictures, headings and text. People are visual creatures – especially artists – so communicating with images is a really efficient way of getting someone’s attention. Whenever you can, support your words with pictures – if you have an idea for how something should look or are trying to communicate something that others are having a hard time understanding, find a pad of paper and sketch it. Make friends with a 2D artist (or better than that, learn to draw yourself) and ask them to help you visualize your idea. When I worked on Red Dead Revolver while it was still a Capcom game, our Japanese Game Director would draw very simple storyboards to explain how he saw the gameplay of a level or a feature – it was a very simple and effective way to make sure that everyone understood his vision, especially since he didn’t necessarily have the amount of English he would have needed to communicate it fully to us.

Okay that’s enough for now – It’s probably all a load of balls, but maybe there are a couple of gems tucked away in that lot. At least I have somewhere to send people for advice now if they ask about Game Design. I plan on writing a part two one day – though for the life of me I have no idea what it will be about.

Multiplayer games need communities

If your game focuses solely around multiplayer, then you are going to have build in some community tools to your product. From simple group “tracking” tools to encourage “clans”, to more advanced stat tracking and player recognition system … and finally to the new “holy grail” of online development – user created content (maps, skins, logos etc.). Shadorun is mostly an anonymous affair – games are set-up “randomly” via Live so the cast of characters you meet changes every time you change servers (which is arguably a good thing), however since there is no sense of player recognition (besides achievements) it is very hard for player to initially judge whether they are outclassed by the opposing team, or how good their own teams mates are. Lack of fundamental “standards” in Shadowrun such as player customization, player rank or stat tracking (which is clearly taking place but is not accessible to the player) are in part what hurts Shadowrun’s reputation and caused the game to review poorly, and thus not get “discovered” by the gaming masses. The game even lacks “match” awards (Best with Handguns, Most useless, Team Killer etc.) – something that has been around since GoldenEye – or an MVP award for the player that made the biggest difference – simple player recognition that has no effect of the game or it’s players but at least will give it’s interpretation of who the best and the worst players were in a game.

To maintain a loyal fan base I believe online games need to encourage the community to create elements of the game, and help the gamers feel they are involved in the success of the game. If Shadowrun had simply taken a leaf about Halo’s Multiplayer book and allowed users to establish their own “game rules” (a list of simple options that allow users to decide how certain features work in a game i.e Time Limit? Only Race X allowed? etc) – it would have allowed the community to discover interesting variants of the standard two game types.

Shadowrun was sent to die …

Microsoft didn’t believe in Shadowrun. For whatever reason – most likely poor management at FASA – there was no faith or support for this product by the publisher. It recieved none of the support that other Microsoft games have recently (Forza 2 for example). No demo appeared on Xbox Live a few weeks before release. The release date coincided with the Halo 3 Beta – a game with infinetly better community support, and considerable interest amongst the 360′s fanbase. At some point Microsoft clearly decided to clearly cut their loss and “dump” the game on the market at full price and hope they might see some money back from the project.

One issue that is consistent through out all the reviews I have seen of Shadowrun is that the reviewer felt that the game was not worth the price that Microsoft were asking for it ($60 in the US). The general feeling that a fun game with only 5 maps (there are 4 other maps which are just smaller versions of the same maps) and 2 game types was not equal to a game that has a 10-15 hour solo campaign in addition to a multiplayer component. If Shadowrun had included just some of the features found in Halo 2 such as ranking, and online stat tracking I think the value for money issue would have been less important, however with Microsoft releasing Shadowrun during the Halo 3 Beta, the lack of features was painfully evident.

Poorly chosen Achievements

Shadowrun suffers from what I call “Attrition” Achievements – achievements that are solely based on how much you are willing to grind through a game rather than as recognition of player skill. The majority of the achievements are “Kill 100 of Race X” or “Get a 100 kills with Weapon Y” – which goes against the game’s “try different combinations” philosophy. These types of goals cause players to become a nuisance in games because their decision making process is focused around the achievement and not the quality of the game – instead of picking up a healing power, players will limit themselves to certain damage powers because they want that 100 kills achievement. A far better way to set up such achievements would be focus them around group efforts – “You have been part of teams that have killed 100 Race X”. The gameplay of Shadowrun encourages experimentation, and the achievements really should have too – rather than separating out achievements for Gust and Strangle, why not combine them – Take my Breath Away (Kill someone by gusting them in to Strangle) this encourages player to take either power or both and reinforces the use of both mechanics. Achievements are great rewards and teaching tools – they really should be used as both.

In spite of this there a number of Shadowrun’s achievements that are very well designed – a personal favorite is Shadowrun Fever (a “viral” achievement that is won by “teabagging” the corpse of someone with the achievement) is very amusing in how it is won and how the information spread through word of mouth.

5 maps? 2 game types?

When this question was brought up during the Major Nelson interview with FASA boss Mitch Gitelman – Gitelman’s (pathetic) response was “How many game types are there in Football?” The answer is “an almost an infinite amount depending on the number of players, and the location”. However in Shadowrun it’s 2 (3 if you include the One side always defends CTF variation they have). As I mentioned earlier setting up some simple rules that players could use to define their own game types (a task that would take a good designer/scripter a matter of minutes to implement in almost any game) would have helped immeasurably. We know Microsoft’s attitude to Shadowrun is to desperately try and get what little money they can back from what they consider a bad investment so any future maps we will see will be “premimum” DLC. It’s unlikely that we will see a significant changes to the gameplay mechanics (each map controls the game type it can support), and the tight balancing of the game is unlikely to be disrupted by new powers or tech. Without new content, almost all communities eventually get bored and move on.

Corpse clearing

I have only one issue with the gameplay mechanics of Shadowrun – Corpse clearing. Over the weeks while I have grown used to the round structure of Shadowrun, I have never been a fan of sitting outside waiting to play – but I appreciate that it adds tension to the game. However corpse clearing seems to me a bizarrely punitive mechanic. When a player dies, there is a power that can return them to life – however that player is now tied to their resurrecter – and should the resurrecter die, then the player will not be able to be revived again. In addition to this, when a player dies their body can be cleared by an enemy by shooting the corpse to prevent resurrection. With the importance place on protecting your resurrector (and the clever use of essence “reservation”) – corpse clearing seems an unnecessary punishment.

This is the wrong product for Cross-platform support – and maybe more importantly this is the wrong game for Shadowrun!

The decision to make Shadowrun cross-platform between the 360 and Windows Vista was a huge mistake for a game that does not have modding tools. The sole reason to involve PC gamers in a console game is to give them the power to create user content – if not via maps, or mods – then via logos or skin changes or other simple customizations that PC owners can create and prepare much easier than console owners.

Shadowrun was launched the same day as Forza 2 – a game with seemingly limitless customization options and great online support. In Forza 2, player can create amazingly detailed custom decals, tune and tweak many different types of cars and sell them for in-game currency via The Auction House – a server side system that has web support. Arguably it should have been Forza that was the cross-platform title, with it clear focus on customization, “in game economy” and tools to support the community (player stats, the Auction House serving as a portal to forums and other forms of communication about the game).

The “Games for Windows” Live initiative is a great idea – Xbox Live is easily one of the best “online portals” I have seen – stands head and shoulders above iTunes in terms of ease of use. Microsoft have made it effortless for 360 owners to gain access to demos, Live Arcade games and premium content, while also allow people to matchmake and play online with ease. Bringing this system over to Windows makes great sense, however for it to even get a foot in door it really needs to have a “killer app” that brings gamers back to their PCs – a Halo 3 or Starcraft 2.

Cross-platform gaming is a great idea – however you really need to make the service stand on it’s own two feet and not rely on the 360 audience to want to use their PC to play games. Microsoft are clearly begining to relax their attitude towards user created content on Live – as can be seen by Forza’s wholehearted embrace of both the Decal system and the Auction House system – they really should have have had the same attitude toward Shadowrun.

Earlier I mentioned the Shadowrun was “sent to die” by Microsoft due to poor management at FASA – decisions such as cross-platform gaming are an indication of the mishandling this project must have gone through. FASA have three IPs – Mechwarrior, Crimson Skies and Shadowrun – all based on pen and paper RPGs or board games – while Mechwarrior was “expertly” translated in to a computer game by Activision during the 1990s, FASA managed to lose a loyal audience by ignoring Mechwarriors roots and making it a Third Person shooter when it arrived on XBOX, similar the original Crimson Skies was an excellent Arcade Shooter – with very faint echoes of the classic X-Wing and TieFighter series. The XBOX sequel took forever to develop (and went throught many iterations) and failed to match the quality of the original Zipper Interactive-developed PC title (though it was a fun game it wasn’t as good as the original).

Now this is FASA Interactive’s third attempt to create a console game out of one of it’s franchise – and while the game they made was a compelling and enjoyable multiplayer focused title – why did they use it to “relaunch” the Shadowrun franchise? Would this idea have worked in the MechAssualt universe (an already console”ized” universe that had arguable survived the transition to the XBOX)? Would this be better suited to an original IP – maybe one with ties to Shadowrun? In many interviews, FASA Interactive talked about the huge canon that is attached to Shadowrun after years of P’n'P development, and that thought it was better to go back to basic and start the story from the beginning – hence the reinvention of Shadowrun as FPS team game, I wonder where FASA Interactive thought this would go? Even if Shadowrun is a huge success on the 360 and Vista – what do you do next? A similar sequel (and again I ask why is this attached to the Shadowrun franchise)? A similar FPS team game but with more character building (you’ll kill part of what makes SR great – the ability to quickly change up abilities to counter other player’s decisions)? A RPG with shooter elements (will it attract the crowd you won over with SR then)? A kart racer (which pretty much equals the 90 degree changes of course that FASA has made with this franchise)? Seriously, where do you take Shadowrun from here?

Forgive me heading a little off-topic, but as I wrote the paragraph above I stumbled upon this story about John Lassiter “killing” Disney’s highly-profitable straight-to-video sequels to Disney Classics. This made me happy – I believe IP should not be exploited and milked for for every last penny, I think it should be treated with respect and either be “left in amber” to always be a classic, or if it must be revisited – it is treated with the utmost respect and any additional material made developed with an eye to continuing to maintain the integrity of the franchise. If FASA Interactive treated it’s franchises with the same respect that Lassiter clearly wants Disney to treat it’s classic franchises , there would be automatic good will between fans of the P’n'P RPG, or the Genesis and SNES games – instead of the vitriol that greeted Shadowrun’s unveiling and subsequent mauling at the hands of the “gaming” public, and Microsoft’s poor perception of the likely success of the product. There is no question that Shadowrun is a beautifully designed game – a labor of love by the development team – that love needed to be extended beyond this single iteration of the franchise to the franchise itself, and to those who would support and care for the franchise after the game ships … it’s audience.

Woo! That is way longer than I thought it would be. I just wanted to add a small note at the end to say that along with everything I have written above and in my product analysis, I really like Shadowrun – in face I own both the 360 and Vista versions. It will be in my Top 5 of 2007, I spent tens of hours playing online, I have noticed it has influenced a little of the design of Project S (the current game my company is developing) – and I hope John Howard and his team get a chance to make a sequel or another game together. I hope the rumors that FASA Interactive are being disbanded are – as Mitch Gitelman claims – false, and I hope there is a sequel to the current Shadowrun – nothing would please me more. I do worry when listen to Gitelman’s interview with Major Nelson, and subsequent tantrums about Shadowrun’s reviews means that he feels Shadowrun is perfect, and purely a victim of Microsoft’s attempts to make some money back of this clearly expensive project. One last thing – play Shadowrun, download the demo from Live, or just risk the $60 – let me know what you think via the comments section.

New topic next post I promise.

Interdependence

While almost every online game has “team” modes – very few (hardly any on consoles) involve players being reliant on each other. In Shadowrun, each team needs multiple people to “sacrifice” a power-up slot for a healing or resurrection ability. Good teams have Rezzers and Healers, bad teams have Elves with Gliders, Smartlink, Smoke and the Sniper Rifle. I love knowing that someone has my back if I die, or that sticking close to a particular player is smart because he drops trees in big fights. I like to rely on people – it’s why I like Online Multiplayer gaming, I like that it teaches gamers “don’t always be a dick”. I like that Shadowrun rewards the healer and the Rezzer – I’m bloody awful at killing people but I can still be pretty high on the “team list” by rezzing my suicidal teammates.

Interesting decisions

The balance of Shadowrun is excellent, even four weeks after launch I find people are still experimenting and developing new strategies based on the situations they might find during a game. I mentioned the “Roshambo” of race, weapon and abilities in my product analysis – and it’s still impresses me how many ways I can plan to “make a difference” in each game. Obviously certain races (Elves) are more popular than others (Trolls) which is a natural indicator of which race is “best” – however that not to say that there are teams of one race that will always win (quite the opposite in my experience). It’s clear that FASA’s approach (one year of prototyping on one map) helped them to really identify the issues with the game and try to counter each problem with multiple solutions.

Decisions can be undone quickly

If a team is fairing poorly, a couple of intelligent players can quickly swap their tech/magic to adjust for the tactics of the opposing team. I’ve seen a number of games where the tide has turned at the mid-point of a match because the other team adapted and started working together to beat their opponents. The only decision that “haunts” you in Shadowrun is which race you choose for a match – something that can be changed after 20 minutes or so. Other decisions simply rely on skill or time to allow you to redo them. I like being able to experiment, and try and different combos (I particularly like Strangle and Gust – Strangle always takes too long to grow, so I like to knock back my opponents in to it – or if timed right, I like to have the Strangle grow around them and trap them). Being able to try silly ideas is at the heart of many successful games – World of Warcraft and the many talent builds, Grand Theft Auto 3 and the different approaches that you can take to complete a mission etc … Shadowrun allows players to truly role play in a way – except that the role play can last for 5 seconds or 15 minutes, the power is in the hands of that player as to whether they stick to their role, or whether they “re-roll” in to something different …

It’s fun

At Shadowrun’s core is a fun FPS experience, one that I hope will be as imitated as Doom’s Deathmatch, Quake’s Capture the Flag, Tribes’ Rabbit, Unreal’s Domination or Battlefield’s Ticket system. I hope that more multiplayer focused developers will find interesting ways to use a team dynamic in a cooperative interdependant way and focus on what a team really is – even for a group of randomly grouped strangers. Shadowrun’s focus on making people work together – rather than in spite of one another, takes this Halo variant in a wonderfully different direction – and frankly, after playing Shadowrun I find the “Team” game types in other games dull and uninspired. In the end I mostly like Shadowrun because it isn’t about an Army of One, it’s about an Army.
I listened to Major Nelson’s podcast this afternoon and he had a interview with FASA’s Mitch Gitelman – who is a douche. Nelson asked all the question I’ve seen the Gaming Community raise – How can you charge $60 for so little content? Why so little content? What can we expect from SR’s Downloadable content? – There were no answers (of course). The guy was a real shithead though – his excuses for why maps takes so long was pathetic (6 weeks to prototype a map – fair enough, 2 MONTHS to do the “art” – your tools needs some work sunshine!), also his reasons for not having customization in the game (Oh the game is so visually demanding we didn’t want to add the the visual “seek time” or some similar bollocks response). While I hope Shadowrun is a commerical success, and that we see both DLC and potentially a sequel, I also don’t want see people like Mitch Gitelmen think that his product was “perfect” – there are many things wrong with Shadowrun … but that’s for my next post.

Shadowrun is a multiplayer (16 players max.) FPS game with a fantasy/sci-fi theme based of a semi-popular Pen and Paper RPG. Heavily influenced by Counter-Strike, Shadowrun has three game modes – Extraction (a multi-flag CTF), Raid (single flag CTF – where one side is always defending or attacking) and Attrition (Team Deathmatch), and 9 maps.

There are two “sides” – neither of which have give any bonuses, however one side (RNA – Blue) will always defend in a Raid match, and the other side (The Lineage – Red), will always attack in a Raid match.

There are three resources in Shadowrun – Health, Essence (Mana/Magic) and Money. Health keeps you alive, Essence powers both Magical and Tech abilities and regens over time, and Money is awarded for performance during a game.

There are four classes whose latent abilities allow them to be the “Rock, Paper, Scissors”.

• Human have no latent abilities – but do have a good balance of Health, Essence and Movement Speed.
• Trolls move slowly and small pool of essence to work with but have latent ability when damaged to harden their skin to absorb damage (as long as they have Essence).
• Dwarves latent ability allows them to absorb Essence from other players and magical objects. They have quite a large amount of essence, but regen it very slowly. They can also take more than one headshot.
• Elves have the least amount of health, but can move the fastest. They can regenerate health when “out of combat”, and have the largest Essence pool.

All of the classes can use any weapon, magic or tech. Weapons do projectile damage – and are the usual FPS weapons (Pistols, SMG, Rocket Launcher, Mini-gun, Sniper Rifle etc.), with exception of the Katana (which is the only melee weapon in the game). Magic abilities are powered by Essence – and allow players to do a number of movement, defense and health related abilities. Tech also uses Essence, but some Tech abilities are latent so they permanently reserve chunks of Essence.

Magic abilities

• Resurrect - Brings fallen teammates back to life, however once resurrected the teammate is tied to the player who resurrected them – should the resurrecter die, the teammate will start to lose Health over time, until someone else can cast resurrect on them.
• Tree of Life – Creates a Tree that has heal over time area of effect for any players that are near it. The tree can be used as cover, and Dwarves can absorb Essence from it – shorting its lifespan.
• Strangle - Another Area of Effect ability that can be used to block access to areas. Strangle (which looks like natural crystals) spread over an area and will absorb a player’s Health and Essence if they get too close. Strangle can be damage by weapons fire or by the Dwarves ability to absorb Essence.
• Gust - A non-damaging attack which knock back enemies. Useful as many of the levels feature bridges and large drops. Gust can also be used to break falls and lessen or nullify fall damage. Gust is also the only ability that can hurt players using the Smoke ability.
• Smoke - Smoke is a stealth-like ability that prevents the user from being detected. While Smoke is activated, the user is immune to weapon or fall damage; however they can be hurt by players using the Gust ability. When Smoke is equipped, mana regeneration rate is slowed. Smoke is deactivated by aggressive actions – and leaves a player vulnerable for a few seconds after deactivation.
• Teleport - Allows player to move eight meters in the direction they are traveling – through solid objects such as walls. Jumping or crouching allows the user to move through ceilings and floors. Can be very useful when combined with Glider to move rapidly through the levels, and to areas otherwise inaccessible.
• Summon - Creates a minion that can guard an area, or chase down and attack a targeted player. Minions will attack other minions (no matter who cast them), and can be weakened and absorbed by a Dwarf’s Magic Absorption ability.

Tech Abilities

• Glider - allows the user to fly upwards a short distance, and allows helps prevent fall damage. When used with Teleport it can allow users to access other inaccessible areas.
• Enhanced Vision - Allows users to see through walls and track targets. Ineffective on users with the Smoke ability activated.
• AntiMagic Generator – An area of effect grenade that can be deployed on any surface that absorbs the essence of anything in it’s Area of Effect – these also prevent certain Racial Abilities from working (Elves Health Regen, Troll’s Harden Skin) when in it’s effect.
• Smartlink - Improves accuracy, and prevents Friendly Fire. Adds a visible laser sight to all weapons, and allows all weapons to have a Zoom.
• Wired Reflexes – improves movement speed, jump height and reload times. When a katana is equipped, the user can deflect some of the bullets fired at them. Has an active function that uses health as a resource that allows the users to boost all these abilities significantly for a very short time.

Game Structure

Shadowrun is entirely multiplayer-focused. Though there are bots for player to practice offline with, the game is very much about playing online against human opponents. In the two CTF-themed modes, death lasts until the end of a round – unless a player is resurrected. Bodies can also be destroyed to prevent resurrection. In Team Deathmatch, fallen teammates eventually respawn on their own.

Each game begins with a Buy period where players can equip themselves with Magic, Tech and Weapons using money. These can be assigned to one of three buttons for quick access (RB, LB or LT) – having certain items equipped have a negative effect on the users mana regen or movement rates.

There is no sense of permanence to a game beyond keeping your magic and tech investments between rounds (even if you die), and your weapon (only if you survive the round). The game does not use any clear skill level identification system, or ranking system.

There are no vehicles, and all the maps are quite small close-quarter focused – with a large number of bridges and long fall distances.

The game controls are heavily influenced by Halo (it’s clear that Bungie have been involved of the tuning of the controls, and the design of certain weapons and abilities) – and the game uses a Soft-Lock mechanic to assist aiming.

Personal Opinion

Shadowrun is a surprisingly well balanced game – however it’s suffers from a severe lack of variety. When teammates work together like most cooperative online experience the game is glorious, with each game a unique experience trying new strategies and builds with heart-pounding action. However the learning curve is steep for new players and the games systems are punishing.

While the classes make for an interesting Roshambo – as do the abilities – the games “last-gen” graphics and the lack of unique elements in the design of maps, makes the levels feel bland and forgetful. The player package feels good – but simple features such as a standard melee attack make the game feel retro in all the wrong ways.

Counterstrike’s influence on Shadowrun is quite obvious – however it’s seems to have taken some of the worst aspects of Counterstrike, and slavish adhered to them instead of improving upon them. In a game that clearly wants players to experiment with different Magic and Tech combinations – it’s seems a bizarre choice to force players to sit out the rest of a round because they died – a long respawn timer would have served as an equally effective punishment, and the ability to destroy corpses to prevent resurrection is bizarrely punitive.

In my opinion, the whole Buying period is also horribly clunky – an in-game way to select weapons (say each team having an armory as a start location) would have removed the need to have a UI screen at the start of every match. Tech and Magic could have easily been assigned via the in-game systems too. Limiting the Buying period (or limiting access to the armory) to the start of a round would have prevented players from reconfiguring too often.

However, the abilities do add a new element to the rather formulaic game – if only they had taken a similar approach to the game modes, and tried to create interesting game scenarios beyond the “tried and tested” CTF and deathmatch. The lack of a ranking system – or any sense of recognition of progress in the game, beyond achievements – was a critical mistake, as was the lack of customization on characters and on game types.

It’s very interesting to see Shadowrun after playing the Halo 3 Beta. Halo rarely focuses on the need for other people (though a good team will also beat an excellent solo player), and to be truly effective in Shadowrun you need a balanced team, with players sacrificing “kill power” for the greater good to pick up resurrection or Tree of Life to assist with. However because of the dependence placed on other people and the punishment systems that the Counterstrike model has – this fun experience can quickly deteriorate in to other people having fun while you simply watch in Spectator mode.

Shadowrun is an interesting failure – what it does right, it does very well – and with a good team is surprisingly fun and playable game. However the gains it makes are lost by having nothing interesting to do with them. It fails to create a community by not recognizing player skill or experience, by lacking the ability to create custom rulesets or avatars, and by not having any modding tools – despite its push to get Xbox360 Live players playing with Windows Vista players. Shadowrun reminds me of the thousands Half-Life or Unreal Tournament mods out there, it’s fun, it has interesting ideas but ultimately it feels as if all the effort was put in the wrong places – it’s not a cohesive product, just a collection of neat ideas presented as basically as possible.

Summary

+ Well balanced
+ Interesting use of Magic and Tech to create new abilities – Teleport, Resurrect and Strangle were especially interesting
+ Well tuned player package
+ Stresses the importance of teamwork, communication and sacrifice

- Lack of variety in game types
- Clunky Character Configuration at the beginning of every round
- Outdated and frankly dumb Death mechanic
- Lack of Player Recognition and Player Customization
- Bland graphics and dull level design

But enough about cellphones, let’s talk about Earth Defense Force 2017. I picked up a copy of this low-budget gem last week after casually following the GAF hype since last year. The premise is simple – you are Japan’s last line of defense against aliens invaders called the Ravagers. Blah blah blah … blow shit up. The game is third person, and your brave little Anti-Godzilla trooper must fight off wave after wave of giant ants, giant spiders, giant robots, giant dinosaurs … are you seeing the pattern here?

The game is full of alien carnage – corpses fill the streets in no time, and you be amazed how the simplistic gameplay mechanics (shoot aliens, get pick-up) become addicting. Another worthy feature is the destruction – while by no means next-gen (I loathe that phrase from my days at Rockstar … but that is for another post) it is extraordinary satisfying to rocket a building and what it collapse to the ground, especially when it is covered by filthy alien ants. If I can be bothered later I might try and dig up a couple of screenshots and throw them up here – but the game is no mona lisa, but it is fun.

Everybody else is doing it so why shouldn’t I?

Really for me – I just want to find a place for me to write – not for anything as sensible as ranting or raving  though I’d expect that – but so that i would get in the habit of writing down ideas and thoughts, so in years to come people might chance upon my most precious inner most thoughts on the life, the universe and everything … and laugh at my feeble spelling and terrible grammar.

I never owned a diary – and probably never will because frankly they are silly, but I can see the benefit in actually writing stuff down to “get it off your chest”.   I love a good cathartic experience as much as the next crazed loon, so don’t expect much in the way of sense, or even imaginative view point.  Just expect drivvel … and dick jokes.