I'm back for a while, and I have some news.
Earlier this month I resigned as Design Lead on the Project Offset team at Intel. I'm back in Texas now, and livin' it up.
For those of you who noticed my LinkedIn and Google chat status, yes, I really have decided to retire from the game industry. More about that in a future post.
On a completely unrelated note, I'd like to discuss game design a little bit, since it's a big part of what I've been doing since last August.
Game design is a lot like the One Ring of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
In the heady early days of game development, the Ring seems small and harmless, and you can't be around it and not want to be involved with it.
Everyone wants to have their voice heard, and everyone wants to contribute to the design. Everyone is full of ideas, and a lot of them are necessary to finish the game -- many of the best ideas come from artists and engineers. Designers can't do it alone.
On the face of it, that's a positive instinct. Brainstorming builds teamwork!
Good ideas can come from anywhere.
Everyone should be involved in creating the game.
Everyone should be able to make a contribution and have a sense of shared authorship.
And brainstorming is intoxicating! Submerged under the flood of new ideas, the hard edges of reality bend and shimmer, fade away, and fall back into the depths. Everything is fluid and all structure is lost. For a moment you are invisible. For a few precious seconds you become one with the Ring.
Why not let everybody contribute wherever they want? Won't that make our game better?
Games are made from ideas, so more ideas can only make the game better, right?
I just want to add this one feature.
And wouldn't it be cool if ...
And as brainstorming becomes routine, unrealistic ideas have to be brushed aside. Team members propose contradictory features, and you have to pick one or the other. Some ideas aren't technically feasible. Some ideas don't fit the vision of the game's design.
Inevitably, not every idea makes it into the game.
There is disappointment.
Disappointment turns into frustration.
Frustration grows into bitterness.
Anyone who holds the Ring for long can become a target of resentment.
Why did they pick that guy to be the Ring-bearer? What makes him so damned special? His ideas aren't any better than anyone else's!
Eventually words are spoken, daggers are drawn, and all hell breaks loose.
And there comes a point when you have to stop and realize:
This really isn't getting us any closer to Mordor.
All the design in the world doesn't matter if the game doesn't get into players' hands.
If you're not trying to get to Mordor, you're not really a Fellowship.
Brainstorming is a good way to light a creative spark, but it's not a good way to do game design.
Design is less about finding a hundred great ideas than finding ten good ideas that work together in a cohesive and harmonious whole, as a solid and focused player experience.
The ability to select the right ideas and do the work required to make them a reality is much more important than the ability to generate them.
Everyone has ideas. The best developers know which ideas to throw away and what to do with the ones they decide to keep.
Design is at least as much about what you leave out as what you put in.
Every feature is a Jenga brick, and your ability to create new ones matters a lot less than your ability to make the ones you have work together.
If nothing is locked down, you're not really in production. You're in preproduction and not admitting it to yourself. You're still in Rivendell arguing over what to do about the Ring.
Heaven help you on the day you discover what the Ring of Game Design is really about -- the terrible price that comes with it and the dark master it serves.
The Ring belongs to your customer, the guy who will be putting actual money on the table for your product.
The longer you wait to get rid of the Ring of Game Design, and the more promises you break along the way, the more you incur his wrath. He decides whether anything you create will succeed or fail.
At the end of the day, your power as a game developer doesn't really belong to you. It's only borrowed from the customer. He is funding your business model, and his decisions will determine whether your business model succeeds or fails. Sooner or later, he will make those decisions.
There is only one who can bend it to his will, and he does not share power.
I've worked on one or two failed projects in my career. I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself for those times I let down the customer.
If I disagree on something with my co-workers, I can deal with that. I'm not happy about it, but no matter what happens between me and my co-workers, it's just business. I'll go home that night and sleep like a baby.
But letting down your customer, and knowing you spent years of your life on something that will take people's money and not make them any happier for it ... that's something you don't get over so easily.
That's the kind of regret that can eat at you for years.
Never forget that the person who posts on the forums daily, who tells his friends about your game, who draws fan art, who wants to spend $49 of his hard-earned money on your game ... is also sending his Ringwraiths after you.
Never forget who really owns the Ring of Game Design, and who watches you from over the mountains of Mordor.
Every day, you make countless decisions that affect him. Someday, he will make a big decision that affects you.
AAAI opened up their digital library of publications and proceedings from past conferences and symposia! This is great news, because there's about 10 years of game AI research available in those archives.
Here are the quick links to the events:
- AIIDE 08 (Conference)
- AIIDE 07 (Conference)
- AIIDE 06 (Conference)
- AIIDE 05 (Conference)
- WS-04-04: Challenges in Game AI (Workshop)
- SS-02-01: Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Entertainment II (Symposium)
- SS-01-02: Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Entertainment I (Symposium)
- SS-00-02: Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Entertainment (Symposium)
- SS-99-02: Artificial Intelligence and Computer Games (Symposium)
Enjoy!