DEATH OF AUTO TUNE...

Tuning a game is hands down the most fun and most satisfying part of the game making process. It's where all of the grueling work of the whole team begins to really pay off.

Just this last week, check out what me, Scott, Kellan, the rest of the ESP gang, Chad (from Sony Santa Monica), and Sony San Diego QA tuned and it will give you an idea of how fun/exciting/rewarding this time in the life of making a game is! 

NOTE: A lot of these numbers may be too big right now but we were feeling the vehicles were not feeling distinct enough and so we wanted to push those numbers way out to make sure we could give the vehicles really big, clear, individual voices and then we'll start dialing some/all of those big numbers back in a bit. 

WHAT WE TUNED IN THE LAST 5 DAYS:

a) Kamakazi's Turn Radius- went from a bit better than the other vehicles to CRAZY GOOD. Super easy to over shoot the 180 flips now BUT once you master the turn, he really is a BLAST to drive! 

b) Upped Reapers Flame Saw from 70 hit points to 150 mother fucking hit points! 

c) Upped the NUKE MISSILE hit point- in NUKE MODE- from 50hp (which we intentionally set way too low for the PAX build and- frankly- had forgotten to set it back) up to 150 hp!  Now shooting the missile down is very possible but either 1 member of your team needs to be the designated missile attacker (i.e. stocked up with powerful weapons and posted up somewhere with a pretty good vantage point) OR a handful of your team needs to be prepped to go into 'shoot the missile down!' mode if the enemy manages to launch the nuke.

d) Started messing with the Ram Matrix to make sure the bigger vehicles did MEGA RAM DAMAGE to other vehicles and to make sure the smaller vehicles were doing less damage than they were in the PAX build. Up until just yesterday, the spread between a medium sized vehicle's max ram damage and JUGGERNAUT's max ram damage was too small to really differentiate that aspect of the vehicle's personality.

e) Game Programmer extraordinaire Ryan added a tweaker to allow each of the 17 vehicles to have their own distinct EMP/FREEZE attack homing variable, meaning some vehicles have amazing homing applied to their freeze attack while other vehicles don't get any homing applied to freeze at all.

f) got to see the mechanic where if you freeze the copter, it drops super fast like a stone from the sky…giving players on the ground a great counter to the copter's ability to attack from above.

g) got to see the code where each vehicle has it's own 'breakout of freeze' strength, meaning a vehicle like REAPER forces the player to only pound the buttons a little to break out of the freeze whereas a vehicle like Outlaw takes a long time to break the freeze if he gets EMP blasted.

h) Increased some of the SACRIFICE CIRCLE ring sizes in NUKE which we were feeling might have been too small for a fun battle. Too big of a ring and you it's too hard to defend, too small (like we had it) and it's just too chaotic and you can't really do anything but button mash and hope for the best. We're not locked to our core ring size yet (we didn't tune the 'how long a vehicle takes to launch a nuke' number along with the sacrifice circle size yet) but my gut tells me we should go at least a LITTLE bigger on the Sacrifice Rings than what we showed at PAX/E3.

i) Messed around with hit points of vehicles to make players really sense the armor of the vehicles. For example, we've kept Reaper at 90 for now, but we popped Outlaw from 160 up to 300 meaty ass hitpoints (although we need to bring down the damage his special weapon currently does in order to compensate)

j) Showed our in game cinematic to San Diego QA and got some GREAT feedback. A number of slow parts from the movies (i.e. the looooong radio opening that you may have seen here) are being sped up this coming week. We'll also be removing some of the lines/moments from the movies that the QA folks were saying felt on the cheesy side. 

k) Began our final PICK UP pass, starting with NYC. Made sure to put our BIG 3 PICK UPS (the ones we want players to fight over/covet, memorize placement locations, care about) in more strategic, memorable locations and adjusted the derivative levels so they retain the core pick up logic from the main maps but have some special case pick up placement to account for the smaller level's intent. If you were wondering: our big 3 pick ups are: HEALTH, MEGA GUNS, and the POWER MISSILE. Sure, other pick ups are great too and for some players, they will covet other pick ups along with (or instead of) these main 3. But still we wanted the all players to feel that these 3 pick ups are pretty special.

l) Adjusted FACTION LEADER locations for NUKE for some of the maps that needed some love (mainly Theme Park, where we had the leaders spawning at the same area of the map- roughly- and since the map is so big, it was ALWAYS a big trek from one side of the map ((where the faction leader was)) to the other side of the map ((where the stationary Nuke launcher was)) ). I don't mind these big treks from time to time, but not every time.

m) Added a COOL DOWN period for MOBILE MISSILE LAUNCHERS in NUKE because the San Diego QA players were launching 3 missiles from the mobile launcher within the space of 30 seconds at times and that just ain't good :)…

n) Agreed to put in a FALL TO DAMAGE logic for ranked games in levels like rooftops where you take a bit of damage (45 hit points) if you fall but you will respawn BUT after a 10 second delay. We were going to make it FALL TO DEATH in ranked games (host can still choose this setting in an unranked game) but it was brought up that grievers on your own team could intentionally fuck with your team by falling and dying over and over just to piss your team off (i.e. if you fall, we take points from your team to dissuade a player who is about to die from just driving off a ledge so the enemy doesn't get a kill)….

o) Agreed to a visual change on the POWER/HOMER/STALKER missile pick ups so the 3 missiles are much more clear. For the longest time, Scott and I both were confused over which was which and given that one of those missiles does 12 points of damage and the other does 75, it's pretty important you know- at a distance and going at super high speeds- if that pick up in the far distance is one you want to go after or ignore. 

p) Worked with ESP QA to adjust cameras for 3/4 player split screen as a bunch of them were not showing off enough of the horizon and this making play a bit frustrating.

There was a bunch more but you get the idea! And as I imagine you can tell by the list above, all these changes really make a HUGE difference in how well the game plays! 

Here's a video of the tuning sessions I took with my new Ipad2…love the damn thing! Altho as you can tell, I shot it upside down and didn't even know it (didn't look upside down when I shot it, I assure you!)…I had a more detailed tuning video but accidentally erased it…sorry bout that :(…

Ok- gotta get some work done tonite then hitting the hay early as tomorrow is a Disneyland day with the kids! We've not been there since May and me and the girls are jonesin' for the Dland...especially since my youngest is now old enough to want to ride the Halloween themed Space Mountain AND go on Tower Of Terror for the very first time! :)

Talk soon- hope you're all well!

David 

BEHOLD...THE JUGGERNAUT!!!!

I LOVE this image and I LOVE this vehicle!

Scott and I have been wanting a semi with trailer in a Twisted Metal game since we worked on the first title back in 1995! We finally got it!

And not only did we get it! But we got it and THEN some!!! Check it out:

Juggernaut lets your teammates drive their vehicles inside the BACK of the damn trailer and then man weapons attached to the top of the trailer! All while the driver of Juggernaut is busy ramming the hell out of the bad guys! But be careful cause if you open your trailer doors to let your buddies inside, ANY SHOT that lands INSIDE the trailer does 2.5X damage!

God, I love this vehicle! :)

Thanks to Donald and Kellan at Eat Sleep Play for grabbing this amazing screen!

David

ps. And yes, if you are wondering, we limit the number of Juggernaut's a team can use in ranked team games. So for Nuke, your team only gets 1 Juggernaut for the whole game. So it's best if your coordinate with your team to decide if you wanna use him as transport or offensively or defensively or at the opening, mid, or end game...Same logic will apply to other 'class like' vehicles such as Talon (the helicopter) and Junkyard Dog (the medic)...For unranked games you can turn this logic off and have- for the most part- as many of these vehicle types as you like...

TWISTED METAL BOX ART!

+++++++EDIT+++++

Oooh, one more! This one from OLDMARIO on my Twitter account....man, this one is dang cool!!! Thanks Sir OldMario :)!

+++++END EDIT+++++


So TWISTED METAL BOX ART!!!!...well, not really :) ...not yet :)...

However, I saw these over on Twisted Metal Alliance and wanted to share.

First up is a fan created box art from Minion89:

Wanna know how I know it's fake? Well, other than for the simple fact that it's...fake? That big, shiny EAT SLEEP PLAY logo on the FRONT COVER. We gotta earn our stripes as a unique company before we are able to negotiate studio logo on the front of the box! 

But anyway, I thought this was kinda cool. However, I would never get behind this as the actual cover and I'll tell you why: no cars! As I've said before, one of our mistakes with Twisted Black's box was picking a great image (I felt) that didn't communicate what was inside the box. This image- cool as it is- has the similar issue which is it sells the insane world of Twisted Metal great but it doesn't sell the core fantasy of the play mechanics: CARS WITH GUNS! 

Still, pretty neat to see them all in one place. And cool to see Calypso in there as well although I don't think he'll ever make the box just because- from a sales standpoint- his story is nowhere near as important as the core fantasy the game is selling.

Then there's this from SeventyXSeven. Guess he got this at E3 this year?!? I had no clue they were handing these out but now that I know, I need to get me one of those!

This image- as I recall- was one of the MANY images we were looking at for the final box art. Final box is not locked yet tho and I don't think this one is going to be the actual box image. You never know, but I don't think it is. Still, I like it! But again...all the wacky vehicles...but no straight up CAR COMBAT! Gotta make sure that makes it onto the core box!

Ok- slammed as always- talk soon-

David

For those who have not met our first boss...this is IRON MAIDEN!

And for those folks out there who wonder why we hire amazingly talented artists and animators: these are my sketches of what would become IRON MAIDEN for a pitch document I wrote for the team:

Core concept? CHECK! Some of her rough gameplay represented (that Scott, Kellan, and I fleshed out LOTS more at LAST year's Comic Con)? CHECK! Visual excution above a 5 year old 's art talent level? OH HELLS NO! Thank God I work with a super talented team! :)

Ok, later ya'll!

David 

Twisted Metal...brought to life!

Man I really hope these movies work out! :)

David 

How Cool :)...

Big thanks to super talented De-monVarela over at the super cool DeviantArt site! I know it's probably egotistical to post this but I just thought it was really neat! 

I imagine most of us who have worked on these titles feel there is a lot of us in the characters. I know I certainly feel that way, that Kratos and Sweet Tooth are very much inside of me and part of me. So to see a pic like this, well, it's just pretty cool and I wanted to share! 

Ok- work's been nuts. Sorry for the lack of updates but what can I say: we've all just been super slammed making the new Twisted Metal! 

Comic Con next week! Hope to see some of ya'll at our Saturday 6pm panel!

Take care, ya'll! 

David 

Prepping For Our Press Event

As some of you know, Twisted Metal gets to be seen and played by many of the gaming press this coming Wednesday night! Along with a whole host of American journalists that we are super excited and grateful to visit with, SCEE is bringing a heaping-helping of European writers to the event as well! We all know that Twisted has never been as big of a hit in the European territories as it has been in America. Hell, has it even ever been considered a 'hit' at all over there? I really don't think so.

BUT we feel with this version of the game we have a shot at substantially increasing the number of Twisted Metal fans all over the world! And this event is a great opportunity for us to reach out to these potential new fans (as well as inform and entertain the amazing fans we've already got).

So as you might imagine, we're very excited- and a little bit nervous (which I take as a good sign...kind of like butterflies in your stomach before you go on stage!)-about the chance to present the game to all of these very important people (the press that shows up and the gamers who read the press afterwards).

Anway, I WAS going to fly out to Utah last night so today Scott, Kellan, I, and the team could sit and tune driving physics, ramming damage, weapon damage hit points, and a whole host of other valuable tweakers and sliders. However, I hung back to work with Sony San Diego on some videos we will be showing to Wednesday night's press before each level/mode that they play. Sort of like what I did here at last year's E3 breakout session:



I thought this video- which we never intended for anyone outside of the press to see- did a great job of letting people know some more of the more intricate, tactical, meaty details of the game.  I was surprised-but very happy- that Giant Bomb captured and posted this breakout session.

And that got us thinking: because we're doing three more of these types of videos/presentations for Wednesday night, we should make sure they get filmed so after the press is done reporting what they want to from the event (we ain't gonna scoop the press at our own press event! :)...) THEN we'll toss the videos of me speaking OVER these 3 new videos onto the net.  Should be good: the press (and man, we hope they like what they see and play) - along with these videos being available to those who want to watch them- should really give people a great, thorough idea of what this game is and where it stands.

Sad part is, in order to get the videos locked, it means I have to stay in San Diego and do remote tweaking sessions with the team today. Remote tuning works great BUT it's nowhere near as fun and satsifying as sitting with the team and making the changes in real time.

ANYWAY- all that preamble and set up just to share this:

This is a part of the email that Scott and Kellan and I are using today to discuss outstanding issues still unresolved for the Wednesday night build. It also has a list of things we want to tweak and tune before the doors are forever closed on this particular press build.

So I just wanted to share a little behind the scenes 'making of' stuff from my perspective.

Ok- week is gonna be nuts! May not get to chat till after the event. Will take pics and write up my impressions of the event for an end of the week post, for sure. But if we don't get to talk before: have a great, safe, fun, productive week!

Talk soon-

David

TWISTED METAL LAUNCHES: OCTOBER 4TH, 2011!!!

Hey! GTTV just launched our brand new TWISTED METAL trailer that- as it turns out- reveals the release date at the end! Thanks to Geoff and Jeremy and the rest of the gang at Gametrailers/GTTV for supporting our game- we really, really appreciate it!

So, check out the trailer below:

Twisted Metal Video Game, Exclusive Broken Trailer | Video Clip | Game Trailers & Videos | GameTrailers.com

What you think? I'm super happy with it and think all the folks at Eat Sleep Play, Sony, Sony VASG, Sony Marketing, Sony PR, Create (the team doing the post work) and Matt Donaldson (our super creative, super nice live action director) did an amazing job on this thing! From the gameplay footage to the live action shots, this is really feeling like the Twisted Metal we've been seeing in our heads for the last few years! So exciting!

Anyway, so: super slammed with the game so no time to chat.

Prepping for a tuning trip in Utah right now (heading out tonight, tuning for 2 days, then in LA Wednesday for our press event). I'll be back on Thursday and post some pics from the event!

Meanwhile, hope you dug our launch trailer and stay tuned for a new, extended version of this trailer (more live action, more gameplay) that should be hitting the net next week sometime (Thursday I THINK?)...

Oh, and check me out on Friday's Playstation blog. I really wished they woulda used the whole edit (it was much more fun and stupid) but hey, it ain't my blog- I'm just glad they are pimping the game and being as supportive and helpful as they are :)...check it out!

Fun video but hell: could they have picked a more unflattering picture of me to freeze frame on?!? Ah well- whatcha gonna do? 

Ok ya'll- crazy day ahead of me so I gotta bolt. Gotta: pay tons of bills (been putting that off cause it takes a lot of time) THEN head to Sony to review sound fx for Wednesday night then head to Sony editing to review edits for Wednesday night videos (which I hope to see up on the net soon) then head to the mall to buy some jeans (I literally have 1 pair of socially acceptable jeans at this point cause I've been too busy to go clothes shopping for over a year) then home to pack and get all my tuning notes ready then head out to the airport. Gonna be a busy mo-fukin day! Ok- I'm on it! Later ya'll! Talk soon!

David

GAMERS HEART JAPAN

Give if you can. DETAILS AND DONATION INFO HERE.

David

ON SET:TWISTED METAL

Been doing some pick up shots and reshoots for TWISTED METAL's live action, in game cinematics over the last week. We'll finish up this coming week (last day of shooting is Wednesday) and then that'll be all she wrote! At that point, what we'll have 'in the can' (as they say) is all we'll ever be able to get and I HOPE it's enough to make these in game stories amazing!

I'm feeling pretty good about it actually! We've shown the rough cuts to a lot of folks and even with a lot of the current content still consisting of rough 3D animatics and 2D storyboard stick figures (cut in with the finished live action shots), the response has been great! Plus, the stuff we shot last July along with this new stuff is looking fantastic! So I just wanted to share some behind the scenes shots with ya'll. Most of this stuff has already been tweeted but here it is again, all in one place.

At first I was like, "I ain't showing ya'll that video! It looks goofy!" BUT this shot was designed to occur in super slow motion and it's AMAZING how dorky something can look when it occurs at real-life speed (like the video above) but then it takes on a downright creepy/artistic quality when it's played back at super slow mo. This is one of those times :)...

As you can tell, the specifics of the shots are all intentionally vague. I can't give away much of anything at this date (and hell, I'd rather you experience for yourself in the proper context)- but if you are as excited as I am about the new Twisted Metal, I thought you'd dig seeing some of this stuff.

Great weekend ya'll!

David

ps. At first I was worried about showing this stuff so unfinished but man, you guys should see how it looks all processed and tricked out. It's going to look SO DIFFERENT from the pics above that what you are seeing here will be almost unrecognizable! So I figured...why not?!?

The Value of (and difference between) PLAY TESTING and FOCUS TESTING

Got this post about FOCUS TESTS from blog reader Daniel in the comments section of another post. I thought it was worth addressing the topic in a post of its own. So here goes:

Here's what Daniel wrote:

David, I know you've had experience with focus tests, I've read your piece on when you were doing a live blog during a focus test for one of your games. I don't understand why this happens in the industry.
Why have games become so watered down? Is it because COD4 sold millions of copies that other publishers want the piece of the pie and think their games have to be designed in similar fashion of watering them down?
I just don't understand the need to make games dumber and more accessible. The challenges in-game are what make the games entertaining. I guess if I wanted to just pass time I'd play Solitaire but that is pushing it since it's more challenging than COD4. :)

My thoughts on this:

- Firstly, Play Tests and Focus Tests are different things. A Play Test is when you put the game in front of players who have never played before so the team can learn about nuts and bolts production/gameplay issues. A Play Test teaches you things like: where the game is confusing, too hard, or too easy. It lets you know if a particular puzzle's solution is too obtuse or if the campaign's difficulty ramps at a good pace. Here's just a few of the questions we've used Play Tests to help us answer about the new TWISTED METAL: 

- did placing that shotgun pick up near the movie theater doors motivate players to drive near the doors and thus increase the chances of players noticing the doors and thus motivating players to bust down those doors and thus discover there is a whole room behind those doors that many players were never finding? 

- which driving control scheme should be our default (the classic and much loved- but very, very dated- controls of TM1,2,and TMB OR a more modern control system ((gas on the shoulders)) that- while modern and expected and much more pick up and play friendly- is not as shooter/car combat friendly as the classic control scheme)?

- Has the VOICE OVER NARRATION and on-screen/HUD text we've put in the game since our LAST Play Test significantly aided brand new players in understanding the rules for our NUKE game mode?

Also: Play Tests bring up brand new (and often times crucial) problems with the game that you and the team never saw coming (either because it's impossible to foresee every problem and/or because after you've been playing and living with the game for 18 months straight, the team gets used to annoyances and folds dealing with those annoyances INTO the play experience…but a new player who is trying out your game for the first time- and who is not PAID to play and live with the game for over a year- will not be so adaptable ). Here's a few of the problems with the new Twisted Metal that we never would have considered fixing/addressing had it not been for some invaluable Play Tests:

- Many players are confused about how to select the vehicle's ALTERNATIVE SPECIAL WEAPON. We assumed the big 'S' with the TRIANGLE ICON above it would make it clear that hitting the triangle when you had SPECIAL selected would cause the SPECIAL to change to ALT SPECIAL. But no such luck. 

- A great deal of the meatier gameplay (i.e. the remote bomb has 2 stages but you have to let the bomb 'cook' in order for the bomb to reach the triple damage of stage 2; if you fire the shotgun very close into the FRONT window of an enemy vehicle, you get a mega damaging POINT BLANK attack) is not being well communicated to players so they have no idea there is as much depth and substance to the gameplay as there really is.

So- as I imagine you can tell- I'm a HUGE fan of Play Tests. I would not want to make a commercial game without them. 

So that's a Play Test.

But a Focus Test is usually a marketing department tool used to test higher level concepts. Things such as: is the core idea of the game marketable, culturally relevant, and commercial? Is the main character unique enough to be memorable but not so unique that he/she/it is not relatable? How does the game you just played compare to similar games in the genre (better/worse/the same) and if you were only going to buy one of them in the next year, what would it take for you to choose OUR game? 

A Focus Test can be run at anytime in the game's life cycle and very different- and very valuable data- can be mined based on when you run the test. For example: when Twisted Metal was just in design phase several years back, marketing did a focus test to figure out how relevant the brand still was as well as how relevant the genre of car combat still was. That particular test told us that car combat was dead to gamers UNLESS it was the TWISTED METAL brand. When it was 'TWISTED METAL car combat' the tests showed us that the genre was still very exciting to action fans. That test also showed us that many gamers really, really, really wanted to see the TWISTED METAL brand revived/back in the gaming space. So- needless to say- that was a dang good Focus Test for all of us at Eat Sleep Play! 

That test also told us that the majority of gamers loved the MP of Twisted Metal BUT still had a very high demand for the Twisted characters and stories and the general TWISTED METAL world. We used that same focus test to see if gamers were more warm to a $39.99 multiplayer-only Twisted Metal Blu Ray game (ala WARHAWK and SOCOM:CONFRONTATION) OR if they wanted a fully featured $59.99 Twisted Metal with Multiplayer and single player campaign modes. 

So that Focus Test went down in 2008 maybe? Start of 2009? But so we did another marketing driven Focus Test just a few months ago (I think Jan 2011) where we let players play a post E3 build of the game and Sony Marketing used that particular Focus Test data to help determine things such as: which features are players most excited about, what levels did they enjoy the most, and which modes and weapons did they like and choose most often. The point of this new data was to aid marketing in knowing where to focus the marketing message when it comes to tv, print, and internet ads as well as general PR opportunities. 

Again, great, great data and a great value to the game.

A lot of people knee jerk at the words PLAY TEST and FOCUS TEST and automatically assume they are evil and they are killing art/emotion/individuality (in games or movies or television or music). 

But at least part of the knee jerk is the gamer not understanding the difference between Play Test and Focus Test. I would imagine if gamers understood that PLAY TESTING was- in essence- mining data to make the game live up to the team's vision, there would be very few folks who would oppose it (except for auteur based art games that are really intended to be a singular vision and playability takes a backseat to the game's message). 

But I think I get where the other part of the 'play/focus tests are evil' knee jerk comes from. It's probably motivated by the times when the data from those tests has been used to undermine the intent and goal of a game (or movie or tv show) in order to make it more palpable to the masses. Does this happen? I'm sure it does…hell, I know it does! But that's not always a bad thing. Hell, in most cases it's not a bad thing. But just like there's a popular myth that ALL corporations are bad and evil, there's one that says MARKETING IS BAD and the people who work in marketing are stupid, unartistic sheep. This is not near true from my experience. Hell, the marketing manager for the new Twisted Metal is MORE of a gamer than I AM! 

The deal is, the main reason the vast majority of people consume entertainment is to be distracted from their everyday lives. They want a break from the norm, or something to do with their friends on a Friday night…or just something to kill time with. Be it a mass market shooter or a stupid sitcom or the latest loud, exploding summer blockbuster. That's just the way it is. Can those things also have depth and meaning and meat on the bones? Oh hell yes and when they do, they make even MORE money (God of War tried to be that; a sitcom that is funny and dumb but still has heart does that; a big blockbuster like THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS does that). But when you are spending the kind of money it takes to lure in the mainstream (be it production costs or marketing costs), there is value in casting the net wide. And Focus AND Play tests help content creators and content marketers get a sense of which way the wind is blowing before they spend much money as well as WHILE they are spending a shit ton of money. 

The less cash you spend, the less people you need to worry about appealing to. And I love pure art pieces, pure commercial pieces, and I especially love those pieces that blend the two. And in all mediums, there is a place and a need for both.I think in games especially, our industry does a great job of making games all across that pure art/pure business spectrum. 

Do I think it's super cool when tons of money is spent on pure art/vision pieces? Oh totally! It's super cool when that happens! But it's rare and it SHOULD be rare. And getting upset that- as games have become super expensive to make- game companies have decided to use Play and Focus Tests to help cast the net wider in order to increase the chance of having a hit, shows a lack of understanding (or a lack of acknowledgement) that games is a business as well as an entertainment/art form. 

Also- when it comes to games like CALL OF DUTY (Daniel's specific example in his comment): COD campaigns have difficulty settings so you can play campaign in super hard mode if you like (at least I think they do…I only play on medium). And while I know his point is the MP aspect, the reality is COD has a shite ton of settings in unranked games so there is nothing it to stop you from setting up a super hard core game if you like. And hell, if you want MORE hardcore than what the unranked COD host settings offer, there are games out there like OPERATION FLASHPOINT that fit the hardcore bill. That game is not near as pretty or polished on the production value end (pretty and polish tends to = lotsa cash) BUT gameplay is what immerses you anyway once the visuals wear off and so those games are being made for folks looking for a more hardcore experience.

David 

Well, Hell...I'd Rather Play In A Space Ship Than A Parking Garage Too...

Oh I dunno....I'm torn over this one.

I mean, ok, the ending occurs way too often in our business and that is very bad and very sad. And many times it IS the result of bad management and bad creative choices (that the game implementers- by the way-had NOTHING to do with 99% of the time). And the dude in the movie with the cell is a dickhead, no doubt.

So is this clip an accurate portrayal of the business? Do industry folks who work for developers (and publishers as well) really have a right to gripe about this stuff? Oh hells yes!

THAT SAID: I think this all too familiar discussion goes both ways in all creative businesses. But the way many developers like to spin it is, 'executives & high level creatives are clueless morons who are not engaged with the product and don't know anything because they are not the ones touching the code or the building the assets in Maya.'

This argument- by the way- is the obnoxious cousin of the equally obnoxious- and totally false- argument that 'great ideas are cheap and easy and execution is everything!'

I think both of those arguments are stinky-ass loads of horseshit. And I base that thinking on the game industry successes and failures I've been involved with and had a hand in over the last 17+ years.*

For every 50 examples a 3D modeler/programmer/game design scripter/etc. can give about being forced to implement an admittedly stupid or uneducated request from a publisher/producer/high level designer/game director, I can name 1 bad artistic/market ignorant/'ripped-off-from-the-latest-movie-they've-seen-without-even-realizing-it' high level creative decision made or suggested (or simply implemented without any warning) by a 3D modeler/programmer/texture artist/etc.

'Well, Jaffe- a 50:1 ratio ain't bad in the favor of the implementers', I hear you saying!

But it actually is. Because the reality is, the folks on a team who mostly do implementation can implement bad decisions (that they themselves had NOTHING to do with, creative wise) and a game can still be a mega hit. Don't get me wrong: NO ONE on the team wants ANYONE to ever be wrong. The more right we ALL ARE the better the game is going to be for the player. BUT if a specific texture doesn't look great or a bad decision by a publisher makes the frame rate drop in a few spots, those types of things (unless they are legion) don't spell doom for a game (and thus- because games are so expensive to make these days- also don't spell doom to the team, developer, and/or publisher).

BUT the folks making the high level decisions don't get to be wrong all that often. And for SOME decisions (game theme, genre, release window, key features, rating,etc.) they don't get to be wrong at all! Make even just a few of these big mistakes- or just miss ONE of the KEY issues- and that's the ball game.

All one needs to do is look at Sony Santa Monica's KINETICA or CALLING ALL CARS! to see this concept made real. Kinetica was a well reviewed, beautifully executed title (made by many of the same genius programmers and artists who make the GOD OF WAR series) but the theme and the art style and the read of the market for the time that title was made was all wrong. CALLING ALL CARS- while not as well reviewed as Kinetica- was beautifully executed from a code and art standpoint, but the theme and the timing made us DOA.


Now look: do I think there are people who can do BOTH of these things- high level creative, marketing thinking AND actual in the guts game making/implementation? Yes. But I've met very, very few.

Usually the ones who think they can do both kinds of jobs really can't. They just wish they could.

Trust me: I've tried to learn C programming language before. And you know, I can kind of do it. I can get some stuff to move around on screen and make stuff interactive. But I'd be a delusional fool- and a disrespectful asshole to the folks who are wired to be Gods at coding- to think my brain is even close to capable of thinking about- let alone executing- game code in ANYWAY close to what the coders at Eat Sleep Play and Sony Santa Monica can do. Same with art. Same with sound fx and music and producing and managing.

But because the high level marketing/game direction/design part of the equation is so intangible (just like writing a screenplay or directing a movie), most people assume they could do it if they just had the time or the opportunity. But I've seen many greenlit games that were ill thought out and/or poorly 'high level' directed (while being staffed with really talented folks) struggle for their lives (and frankly, the majority of these games end up cancelled).

The folks I love to work with in games are those who specialize in their fields but also have a healthy respect for those other areas of the game making process in which they do not excel. The reality is, all areas of game making are crucial and all areas need experts (as well as passionate, eager to learn noobs) on board if the ship is to fly high. Just like there are programers worth 100x their weight in gold because of their ability to lead a coder team to develop the next super hot graphics engine, and just like there are concept artists and 3D modelers who can take a chicken scratch sketch on a napkin and turn it into a fully realized, living, breathing world, there are people in design, direction, marketing, and publishing who can read the tea leaves of the business, who can take an accurate pulse of the players, and who are in touch with the cultural zeitgeist (as well as in touch with their own creative powers) and in doing and in being so, these 'high level thinkers' are able to make consistent-enough decisions that result in marketable high concepts, big sales, and intellectual property worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

David


* Please don't send me or reference the 'ideas are cheap;execution is everything' clip from PIXAR. It's a great- and pretty inspiring- clip. BUT what a lot of people miss when watching that clip is that IDEAS are PART of EXECUTION at PIXAR and Lasseter and Pete Doctor and Brad Bird are all masters of great ideas and storytelling and character creation (all intangible skills that range from high to low level thinking) . If these Pixar creative leaders were not great at the ideas, then instead of UP and TOY STORY and FINDING NEMO, PIXAR would be making MARS NEEDS MOMS! and GNOMEO AND JULLIET (2 movies that I've seen no one bitch about the execution of, but have seen TONS of people bitching about the lack of quality characters, lack of fresh ideas, and stale storytelling within those technically well executed films).

ps. Does it suck to turn a parking garage into a spaceship? Yes. SHOULD that idea have been brought up during the concept art phase? Yes. But you know what? Shit happens. High level thinkers don't always get it 100% right out of the gate anymore than a coder is expected to NOT rewrite a line of code close to launch in order to make the game run faster. Great creative work (at all levels) is messy and iterative (look at the history of TOY STORY 2) and it's management's job to recognize this and build this uncertainty/iterative time/redo time into the schedule and NOT sign deals with publishers that promise the moon (simply to get the deal signed) but end up hurting the team.

GOOD NIGHT AND HAVE A PLEASANT TOMORROW...

Happy Weekend! If you were curious, here's what's up with me :)...


1. IT'S A TWISTED METAL WEEKEND: Settling in for a long weekend of Twisted Metal work. On Deck:


a-Sending my notes and ideas to the team so we can lock what the RANKED non-tweakable HOST settings will be. For ranked games, we're- understandably, I assume- not giving the host much freedom at all.


b- Figuring out the UNRANKED host settings for multiplayer. For example, when you fall off cliff roads and rooftops in an unranked game, we'll let the host decide if a fall= instant death (the earlier TM games) or just damage and a respawn back in the action (the latter TM games). Oh, and from what I hear from the TMA crew, UNLIMITED WEAPONS is a big no-no! :)


QUICK QUESTION: And we may have discussed this before but it's time to pull a damn trigger on the issue: My gut says everything should be unlocked in UNRANKED games (online and split) because if you just want to play casually with buddies and see the stuff you paid for, why the hell not? BUT I also know there is a vocal crew of CALL OF DUTY:BLACK OPS that were PISSED that everything was unlocked in unranked from the get go. What do ya'll think? AGAIN: PLEASE- not looking for fresh ideas...just looking to see which way you'd go out of those two options- thoughts? Thanks in advance!


c-Writing the TIPS that appear on the load screen in in game.


d- Sending the team my latest notes and thoughts on our CAMPAIGN mode (tweaks, tuning suggestions, any last remaining pacing suggestions/ concerns/questions,etc.)


e-Prepping for a TWISTED METAL media event next month.


f-Reviewing the shot list for our live action Twisted Metal shoot coming up next week (going back in to the studio to capture shots we missed, redo some performances that need touch of love, capturing a few new shots to make certain story points stronger). Storytelling- like game creating (and ANY creative project I would assume)- is ALL about the iteration.


g-Prepping tune/tweak numbers to send to Scott out in Utah for vehicle driving differentiation and weapon/special weapon damage amounts.


h-Recording a video for Victor Lucas' I LOVE JAPAN charity event.


FUCKING WHEW! Wish me luck!


Here's what else I'm gonna try to squeeze in:


2. WEST WING SEASON 3 MARATHON CONTINUES- Been devouring them on Apple TV for the last month! Never watched before and it's become my second favorite tv show of all time already (right behind SIX FEET UNDER). At the end of the series, it may take the top spot (but I doubt it).


3. SPIN/MEDITATE- hope to get 2 spins in and about 20 minutes on the cushion this weekend. We'll see!


4. BILLS and BUDGET- ugh, never ends. How dare those bastards ask me to pay for the shit I use! :)


5. CONGRATULATIONS TO MY BUDDY- Some of you know I'm friends with Jeff Goldsmith, he of the amazing Creative Screenwriting podcast (also my co-writer on the TWISTED METAL:BLACK and TM2 end movies). Well these days he does an amazing Q/A with the world's best and most successful screenwriters and this stuff ain't PR fluff folks. He's really, really good at offering up insightful, probing, and smart as hell interviews about the craft and the life of today's working screenwriter.


OH WAIT!...he ain't doin that no more! :)


Nope- Jeff bolted from Creative Screenwriting and started his very own screenwriting podcast (same great format, same great guests, same amazing quality...if not better!) called THE Q & A WITH JEFF GOLDSMITH The first few episodes just hit this week (including one with the screenwriter of the new film FLAWLESS, a movie I REALLY want to see!) so please, do yourself a favor and check it out! 


6. PRAYING FOR A MIRACLE- Check it:

This just can't end well...can it?!? :)


My kids and their baby sitter are washing our new dog- Austin- at home for the first time. We just got him in January and so far I've had the vet bathe him twice and then used an animal grooming/bathing service up the road just once. We let him dig in the dirt, play in the backyard, go a little nuts (as all dogs should! :) )...


Well today the kids really wanted to bathe the guy in their own tub and their baby sitter was game (she's braver than I am, I tell you that!) Well so far, it's going GREAT! He's such a damn trooper this guy- so sweet and gentle with my girls. He just puts up with everything. Look at that face: you can tell he's just like, 'Ah screw it-these are my people and if these loud little kids wanna bathe me, screw it- what else I got goin' on today?'  I'm not sure why he's a union truck driver from New Jersey, but there it is. :)


Ok- it's a full weekend so I'm gonna get banging on it. Hope ya'll are having a great one as well!


Talk soon!


David


PS. WHICH FONT? Is this post the way to go? 


Or should I go with the SMALLER FONT I've been using?


THANKS! 

Kids

This is a picture of the top of the little cabinet outside my daughters' bedroom. Since they were born, I've been reading to them every night before bed. Hell, I read to them even when they were still in their mamma's tummy.

I have fond memories of leaving the God of War 1 team around 6 on most nights to rush home and read my oldest (now 7) The Foot Book By Dr. Seuss. Then I would head back in to Sony to work on the game.

Putting my kids to bed with books: it's just been instinct. It never occurred to me not to read to them before bed.

Ok, so back to this cabinet: I toss the books we're currently reading up on top so they're easy to get to the next night.

So just now, I was heading in to my office-across the hall from their bedroom- to start my day and I was stopped cold when I saw the books that were up there. When I looked at them, a few things occurred to me:

* Man, they grow fast and you can see that growth in the books they now like. My youngest (5) is learning to read for herself (and doing an amazing job of it, I might add!) and thus the Level 1 My Little Pony reading book. My oldest continues to say she wants to be an Animal Rescuer when she grows up (she's been saying this since she was 3) and hence the Jane Goodall bio above (side note: it's so cool to use books to introduce my girls to amazing people- and especially women- who have done amazing things in life!)

But these titles are such a far cry from The Foot Book and The Very Hungry Caterpillar cardboard books I used to read to them (and that they used to chew on as they were teething). It's a little sad to watch them grow out of those kinds of things (I love being a dad and loved having tiny kids in the house) but seeing this progress in them is actually much more exciting. Not just because it shows how much they are learning and how their mind's are developing. But because before I know it, they'll be reading teen fiction and then adult books. How fun to be able to share books with them as adults (electronically, I would imagine!) and how fun to sit around the table (be it ours or a table in their own homes as adults) and discuss and debate and share the things we've discovered in books.

* There's a shite ton of creative work happening in kid's fiction. Not just the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson stuff, but for all ages and all genres. Unless you have kids- or want to write kid fiction- I can't imagine this stuff is on your radar. It certainly wasn't on mine. But now that it is, it's such a cool new world to discover. And now that I've discovered it, I think I may actually have a kid/young adult book in me! But then again, I imagine most parents who rediscover the fun, imaginative, cool, varied, creative, and exciting world of kid fiction feel that way. I wonder if I'll ever really sit down and try to write the thing.

*The last- and most powerful- thing that stopped me cold when I saw these books is this: I am super, super blessed. By God? By random chance? By the team that programmed this super immersive VR simulation that I've been playing for the last 39 years? Hard to say- that's why I love being an agnostic...I don't have  to say! :)- BUT whatever it is that brings things into our lives, I've been blessed by it. Being a dad is the best thing I am and the best thing I ever will be. It is joy.

David

The Trouble With BEING The Batman...

This was a comment reply I made to a very well thought out- but fundamentally flawed (in my mind)- argument that a reader named Chris made about the way to improve- and the need for- great storytelling in games.

Here's what I wrote:

Chris- thanks for the well thought out, passionate reply. Clearly you've thought a great deal about this.

However,not to come across as someone trying to burst your bubble but I have to say that I've thought a lot about it as well and your 'imagine if's' (i.e. BATMAN/JOKER in the interrogation scene) sound a lot like me 5,6 years ago...even before that.

But here's the problem I have with your pitch and similar pitches (and trust me, I hear your line of thinking all the time):

You make the mistake of thinking that many of us who make gamey games don't care about infusing great story into our games and are just in it for the BIG! BANG! POW! because that's what we grew up with. Not the case. My generation also grew up with JAWS and ET and EMPIRE and OUT OF AFRICA and on and on and we are very aware of what film is capable of and there was a time a lot of us (myself included) longed for games to have a similar impact on our audiences (and on us).

But then we actually worked in the interactive medium and studied the medium and watched how the brain works when a game is played and realized that PLAYING as BATMAN in the interrogation scene would look NOTHING LIKE and FEEL nothing like WATCHING Batman interrogate the Joker.   And that's the mistake so many in your camp make (and I used to make it as well): you watch movies and get moved by them and then rush to say 'I want my games to feel that way too!' BUT you fail to realize that the feelings you are so amped by come from the very nature of OBSERVING SOMEONE ELSE'S STORY from a tightly controlled, highly manipulated, and non-interactive vantage point.

You CAN'T feel the way you feel when you WATCH a great scene simply by being the star of that scene. Because the INSTANT you have control, all of the emotion that you love about linear storytelling dies and your brain goes to the same place it goes in your real life when you encounter a challenge: 'how do I solve this problem?'....be it it 'how do I get home by 6pm for dinner with the kids' or 'how do I avoid the guy with the gun who just came into the bank' or 'how do I get that girl to go out with me', all of these scenarios- once they become YOUR scenarios- are expressed thru actions and 'play mechanics' and because of that, the FEELING you get when you are solving the problem (NOT watching someone else solve it) is one of a puzzle or a challenge (the feeling would be EXACTLY that of playing a game if you were capable of removing the real life ramifications of your challenge's outcome. But even though you can't the feeling is still very, very close to playing a game and it's significantly closer to the feeling you get playing a game than it is to the feeling of watching a scene in a movie).

And that to me is the FIRST step I feel game makers HAVE to accept if we are to discover what interactivity is capable of.

We have to realize that the way the brain responds to an interactive scenario is incongruent with the way the brain responds to watching someone else's interactive scenario play out. And in making this realization, we can then ask ourselves how the very thing that makes our medium so special- INTERACTIVITY- can bring about the emotions and ideas and scenarios that we see in film and are so eager to replicate in games. HOWEVER, the way we give our audience an emotion- even if it's an emotion shared by another medium like movies- will be very different than how the other mediums provide the very same emotion. THIS- to me- IS KEY!

OR we'll come to a point where we realize- BECAUSE we are slaves (as we should be) to interactivity, that we should chase after emotions and ideas and scenarios that are special and unique to interactivity, versus simply trying to replicate the emotions that other mediums already offer up so naturally and so successfully. Perhaps interactivity will NEVER be able to create the sort of emotional longing that one gets when they watch ET fly away from Elliot...but we CAN do tension, terror, competition, anxiety, the joy of team work, the joy of learning through experimentation,etc,etc,etc probably better than ANY other medium. And I say why run from this? Why not plant our flag in the rich and still fresh soil of the emotions and responses that our medium excels at NATURALLY?  Why are we so desperate to bogart emotions from other mediums? Perhaps those that are should just- you know- go work in those other mediums and then they'd be a lot more satisfied.

OR we'll wait for 100-1000 years until AI and processing advances to the point where a story/scene writes itself in real time/procedurally and as we play in the space we never encounter challenges (that pull us out of the fiction and turn us into puzzle solvers) but instead we experience a constantly adjusting and always engaging, interactive scenario that writes and re-writes itself in real time based on our choices, while still staying true with the genre/style of experience that we've chosen to have.

David

Shit Never Gets Old...

It's always an amazing feeling to see a game you're working on on a magazine cover out 'in the wild';knowing that even while you are holed up banging on the game and just going about your daily life, the mag is out in the world, doing it's job to spread the word! I love this cover and I love that DollFace and Sweet Tooth are out and about preaching the Twisted gospel to the masses!

David

++++UPDATE: One of the commenters- Misael- asked me why Dollface was picked as a cover subject instead of Sweet Tooth. I started to answer him in the comments but figured this may be of interest to some others...so I put it here. Here's my answer:


Misael, We have a great producer on the game named Angelic who does a great deal of the Eat Sleep Play art wrangling when our games are fortunate enough to be offered a cover. Between her, the art folks at the magazine itself, and one of our stunningly talented concept artists (in this case a sickeningly MULTI talented ((and all around nice guy)) concept artist named Owen Richardson) the covers get done.

Ok, ok, YES there is a decent amount of backseat driving from myself, Scott Campbell, Kellan Hatch,Sony PD,PR, & Marketing and- naturally- the publication itself who always (understandably) has their own agenda they need to fulfill.

In the case of Twisted Metal and print mags, it's a bit of a challenge because we are always hearing this sort of thing: 'Vehicles on covers don't sell...we gotta see people/characters. Whenever we have covers with vehicles as the stars- in MOST cases- the sales for that month are not where we want them'.

And this is not just Gamepro. This pretty much seems to be the party line for 99% of the print mags that we've worked with. And we get the point. Most people are visually and instantly drawn to other people/characters instead of machines. Makes sense to us.

But it presents a challenge for our particular game because it's not good for Twisted to JUST put characters with no vehicles on magazine covers because new fans- as well as long time fans just getting wind of a new Twisted Metal- could easily misread the cover's message and think we've turned the new TM into a 3rd person character shooter and/or a game where you can get out of the vehicles and walk around ala GTA. So we're always trying to find the balance between giving the print mags what they need to succeed in their business world while also making sure the message of what the new Twisted Metal is is loud and clear (aka what WE need to succeed in OUR business world).

And sometimes there are mags that simply won't put cars on the covers at all. In those cases we have to look at the magazine's impact on gamers and the mag's cultural relevancy in the gaming space and the magazine's circulation and decide if the risk of potentially incorrectly communicating our brand with a non vehicle cover is worth it.

Usually though, the magazines are happy and helpful to work with us on a compromise and we are always grateful for that. This is why the actual Gamepro cover is different from Owen's initial concept art (which you can see a few posts down)...at the last minute Gamepro (a magazine we all love and were desperate to work with) stepped in with a suggestion of how to keep the cover character centric but still allow our brand message to shine through. I love how it came out and I hope the issue is selling great for the Gamepro folks.*

As for why Dollface was used instead of Sweet Tooth: I honestly don't know why Dollface was picked as the cover subject. Perhaps because PTOM (Playstation: The Official Magazine) had been kind enough just a few months back to also give our game a cover and they used a bad ass Sweet Tooth image (also by Owen) and so perhaps Gamepro wanted their Twisted cover to be different? I'm not really sure.

But as I said, I think it came out FANTASTIC! Hope you all do as well and I hope if you are into/interested in the new Twisted Metal (as well as interested in reading a game mag that- in the last year- has really, really gotten good) that you pick up the new Gamepro.

Later!

David

*Please don't read anything into the fact that the PTOM cover did NOT feature a vehicle. In other words: I'm not even close to suggesting that for PTOM we would live with potentially muddying our brand but we would not do the same for GAMEPRO. That's not the case and for all I know Gary and the team at PTOM would have been happy to work with us- like Gamepro-to create a marketable cover that worked for them while also working with us to more properly communicate our brand. It's just that the PTOM cover- which I also love and ended up getting a mega sized version framed and now have hanging in my office- came together before we had set up our internal marketing/PR/PD primary directive of 'ALWAYS show the game's characters IN/ON/AROUND/ASSOCIATED WITH the game's vehicles.' In fact Owen's submitted image for Gamepro also occurred before we had set up our 'Characters WITH vehicles' rule (thus the difference between his final image and the on the shelf cover). So again, thanks to Gamepro for stepping in with a great, creative solve that seems to have worked out great for everyone!