Reasons why it's not worth being a PC gamer in 2010...

http://adrianwerner.wordpress.com/games-of-2010/

Another hit and run post. Not enough hours in the day. Anyways, enjoy this article. It's great if only to discover of PC games that you didn't know about.

Consolification'd

CTF-UrbanJungle

My third UT3 map, but my first CTF. I put a lot more time into this one than my previous two. Added some Z-axis gameplay and concentrated much more on gameplay and balance this time around. Lighting was a challenge and an area that I need to work on. I also think I'm going to stop designing maps without proper planning; ie not drawing the basic layout of the map on graph paper before starting.

Next up, creating a Duke3D.exe map in BUILD :)

Incoming lawsuit

Lucasarts, just let this one slide.

I'd be one hot librarian

Blizzard's Library.

Heaven. If I could be the librarian here, I'd live a very happy life.

Sailing along

It's been awhile since I've talked about the big HL2 mod I am currently working on, Neptune. For the most part, it's been coming along, slowly, but surely. When the team came together, and I joined the project back in about August of 2008, we were all extremely excited about the project, very ambitious and eager to get it done. However, we became over ambitious trying to create something that we neither had the resources or time to achieve.

My primary role on Neptune is lead writer. The main guy behind Neptune, England native Lewis Denby, thought up of the initial concept and story of Neptune. He recruited me to turn his idea into a workable, strong story. Having more of a screenwriting background at that time, I approached the project like I would a film. I wrote a 6 page treatment which the team and I went over and picked apart. It was then that I would learn the biggest difference between writing for film and for video games.

Writing for video games is unlike writing for film for many many reasons. However, the main obstacle in writing for games is the technological barrier. I originally wrote this epic magnificent intro were the player character is aboard a small fishing boat in the middle of the Atlantic before a monstrous hurricane comes and batters the boat which is then sucked down into the ocean by a cyclone. The team quickly came to me and said very frank "that's not something that we have the resources or time to do". A lot of my treatment had to "dumbed down" if this mod were to ever see the light of day. A lot of things had to completely rewritten and/or pulled from the treatment. This made me a much more aware writer for video games as I now have the ultimate question of "can this engine perform this?" stays in the back of my mind whenever I write.

So lesson learned, I began to write the script. The script took a very long time, much more then it should have. During the winter months, progress slowed down to a crawl. The entire team was just swamped with real life obligations and it became exceedingly difficult to devote more time then we would want to on Neptune. Morale was down, so low to the point were many of us believed the mod was dead. I knew that the main problem was the script. Everyone was waiting on it so that they would have something to work on, levels to build, art to create, music and sound and compose. The game design document that Lewis initially wrote was good, but incomplete in a lot of ways and didn't provide a lot of information regarding on what to create for the game; I am currently rewriting a full game design doc which should further steer production in the right direction and communicate a clear vision for the team.

It wasn't till May of 2009 that the script was finally done. I posted it on our mod forum for the team to read and received great praise, especially for the ending (I can't spoil everything ;) ). Morale was risen high and production jump started into high gear. We had a meeting and basically said to each other "look, we are a small team, talented, but small. We are getting lost in the big picture and need to focus on creating a scary experience and horrifying atmosphere.". We completely redesigned the concept of Neptune into something manageable. The number of characters were cut in half, enemies were to be re-designed so that they can be recycled through out, number of weapons decreased, intro completely rewritten, etc. As Ron Gilbert once said "don't be afraid to take away from your game". We haven't made the Neptune less of a game, in fact I believe it's a stronger game now then before.

With a lot of cuts being made, I feel it's actually been for the best. The new intro is absolutely fabulous and down right scary. It automatically hooks the player into the mystery of the Neptune, setting the mood and tone perfectly, all at the same time within the means of the level designers. Once again the team has high hopes for Neptune and we are on a fast track towards release. As my own personal level designing skills increase everyday, I am sure that I will be able to help out with level designing duties which will only further speed up the process.

Neptune is still a very ambitious project. Not many singleplayer mods actually get finished, nor do they feature such a new and interesting IP. Neptune has much potential to create giant waves in the mod community. We already have a large following and I can't wait for fans, and non-fans alike, to get their grubby hands on this mod. I'm sure it will nothing short of an amazing, terrifying experience.

NYU Game School Lecture Series Podcasts

http://blogs.nyu.edu/blogs/be18/thenyugamecenter/

You will find the podcasts of the lecture series featuring game designers such as Jonathan Blow, Warren Spector and a few others that the NYU Game School held earlier in the Spring. A great listen for any game developer.

DM-Intersection

I'm too tired right now to discuss the development of my second map, DM-Intersection. However, enjoy these screen shots for now.

From DM-Intersection

From DM-Intersection

From DM-Intersection

From DM-Intersection

From DM-Intersection

From DM-Intersection

4mm

I'm excited to hear about a new studio opening up in NYC, especially with such big names behind it. Maybe I won't have to move thousands of miles West to find a game dev job after all. Nothing but best wishes and great success for 4mm, and every other game dev studio in New York!

Architecture

As I delve deeper and deeper into level designing, I'm quickly learning that the knowledge of even just basic architecture is a must. A level designer needs to know why a building it built the way it is, where and why a support beam is placed in spot A instead of spot B, etc. Even when creating alien worlds, the architecture needs to make sense (in most cases). So I am going to start reading some books on architecture, along with the pile of books I've bought on level design. I'm also considering dusting off my digital camera and going out to New York and taking 4gb worth of pictures of the city. Shots of building's, alleyways, streets, basically anything I see that I could see myself one day re-creating in UnrealEd. This way I'll have an encyclopedia of real work architecture and environments to refer to so that I may create more believable maps.

I believe this is something every aspiring level designer should do. While building DM-Intersection, I stopped mid-way asking myself "Crap, what does a city intersection really look like? Do brick buildings have gutters? What kind of windows do they have? Crap, I don't have any sidewalks. How are electric wires delivered to the buildings? How are lamp posts placed? Manholes?". You get the idea. These extreme fine details are what bring the level together and make it alive.

I've also realized how important the placement of every static mesh effects the overall atmosphere, how each static mesh has the ability to add to the story of the map. For instance, DM-Intersection takes place in the midst of a pre-apocalyptic torn mega-city, a period of conflict and terror. So how can I show this? Piles of rubble are a great start, but that's not enough. Cars turned over, trash cans spilled over spewing garbage everywhere, small pit fires, XXX stores indicating a period of low morals, pieces of destroyed statues (political perhaps?), the list goes on. A level designer should ask himself "why" he's selecting a particular static mesh and "why" he is placing it where he's decided to put it. Does it add to the story of the map, to the atmosphere, or take away from it?

Perhaps that's why I enjoy level designing so much, because they are, perhaps more than any one else, the true storytellers of a game.

DM-Intersection Alpha Build

My latest map, DM-Intersection is coming along well. As I have learned with my first map, DM-Plusnminus, I tend to make rooms too small and claustrophobic. While that wasn't my initial intention with my first map, it ended up working well. However, for DM-Intersection I wanted to create a much more open environment, at least on the Z-axis anyways. The map is still small, a great 1-on-1 battle. The map is currently in it's alpha build; needs a lot of work and I haven't even started the lightening yet. I am happy with how the map is turning out and I can't wait to do a first playtest to see how it all comes together. Enjoy the screenshots.

From DM-Intersection

From DM-Intersection

From DM-Intersection

From DM-Intersection

DM-Intersection

It's coming along. I' going for that "mini-epic" look. I'm trying to create an atmosphere that makes you feel like you are battling it out in the middle of a giant metropolis, but confined to a small intersection of the city due to randomly placed impervious brick walls and towering fences (place holders for now). Need to flesh out the map with static meshes and proper lighting. Even though the map is still small in size, it won't feel so claustrophobic in comparison to my first map.

From DM-Intersection

End of an era...

RIP 3D Realms. Nothing but best wishes for everyone.

It's Alive! It's Alive!

No, I don't just mean this blog, which hasn't seen much activity lately. Yes, the usual "I've been busy" shmeal. What's more important is the results of my first UnrealED map. Level design is something I've always wanted to take up ever since I began tweaking already made Duke3d levels (I promise I never took the credit of creating the maps!). However, I never took the time to sit down and learn how to fully use any of the popular level editors at the time. Until now.

My decision to seriously take the time, as minimal as it is now a days, and hunker down and put my self through a crash course of UnrealED came out of the decision of what area of game development I truly want to explore as a possible career path. Currently, I have just begun a graduate computer science program; only taking a database management system course right now. As interesting as I find computer science, I'm unsure whether or not I would enjoy that aspect of game development, fearing it's not creative enough for my liking. So I finally decided that more than likely the best possible career path would be that of a game (level) designer.

I must thank Epic Games for including such terrific and thorough UnrealED tutorial videos with the CE of UT3. With the companionship of these videos, I've finally dove into the world of level design. I have a pretty good process going right now. The videos are broken up into different sections, or lesson plans as I like to think of them, exploring the breadth of UnrealED. With each section, I follow along on my desktop with my laptop playing the video. Once I've completed a section, I re-watch the section again, only this time I write down notes as if the video was a Professor during a lecture class. I'm finding that this helps me absorb and understand the material much better, faster, and more complete this way. Finally, I take all that knowledge and tinker with UnrealED, putting what I've learned into practice.

From DM-PlusnMinus

I wish I could say I've completed all 20+ hours of the tutorial videos, but sadly real life would prevent me so. However, I've gotten far, far enough where I've created and completed my first deathmatch level. For my first map, I wanted to create something manageable. As much as I wanted to go ahead and create a extravagant wide open 32+ CTF map, I held back my ambitions and created a very claustrophobic 1 on 1 deathmatch map. I personally missed the days of Dukematches where the battle was a much more personal experience between the players, creating rivalries and allies on a whim. So I hoped creating a small map would help bring back that personal level of deathmatch.

From DM-PlusnMinus

The design of the map is probably best described as a classic window. An addition symbol shaped main room with connecting hallways. As much as I am a fan of secret rooms and camping spots, I wanted the action to be constant and intense with no where to hide. The hallways are a step up from the main room which I decide to leave to make the map a bit more challenging as you have to plan your jump just right, or you'll end up with a back full of flaks. Depending on the frag limit, matches can end just as quickly as they started. The theme of an old abandoned industrial factory sort of just came into place as I was browsing through UnrealED's generic browser, searching through the packages. I believe I drove through a small town in Connecticut the day I started the map which features these great, sorrowful, beat-up, dreadful waterside factories and warehouses and that just seemed like something you'd find in UT3.

From Recently Updated

So I began to decorate the map with static meshes, doing my best to make the map believable and alive (or dead depending on how you look at it). Virtually all visible surfaces in a normal UT3 map are static meshes, and I tried to do the same with my map but I decided to keep to light due to the small area. Most static meshes offer collision detection and it would make navigating the map frustrating.

From Recently Updated

It was my first natural urge to include a rocket launcher, however given the close and tight proximity of the map I thought the surface damage would be too great and create disgruntle players. So I decided to include only the BioRifle and the Flak Cannon, two favorite weapons of mine and great for close proximity battles. I also threw in a Vest, Shielded Belt, and of course a U-Damage powerup. I didn't include any health as I always wanted the battles to be desperate and relentless, not letting the players rely on health to save them.

From Recently Updated

Lighting the map was a challenge. I decided to place the lights inside the static meshes, given the small scale of them. Once the lighting was built, I noticed many of the lights didn't appear to be projecting any light! I checked all the settings, falloff exponent, brightness, etc. I then realized I forgot to uncheck "Cast Shadows" for the static meshes. Once the lighting was properly rebuilt a few corners and areas were to dark, completely lost in darkness. I adjust the light radius on several of the lights, which helped in some cases but the center of the main room wasn't being illuminated well enough. While I didn't want the map to feature creepy shadows, it was too much. I then included an ambient light (something I should have done from the beginning) and it became a great fill light for the difficult to light areas, yet not over lighting the map.

The first play test was interesting. I've found that whoever got the upper hand during the opening of the match ended up dominating the rest of the match. This was due to the fact that the weapon spawn rates weren't instant, thus leaving the other player only with an Enforcer to fight against someone with a Flak Cannon, which is never a good idea especially with no where to run or hide. While I'm sure the more hardcore player would accept the challenge, I personally didn't enjoy it, and thus made all weapons instantly respawn which leveled the playing field.

From Recently Updated

I also discovered that I accidentally created a booby-trap. One of the static meshes, a large chain hook that hangs from the ceiling, directly above the Flak Cannon, offers collision detection. If a player aims his BioRifle just right, he can glob on a large mass of goo onto the chain hook, leaving the Flak Cannon unobtainable without death.

From DM-PlusnMinus

Overall, I must say my first map isn't a great success, but far from a failure as well. I learned a great deal about the basics of level design, not only how to use UnrealED, but how to create an enjoyable experience in-game and how every little decision of the level designer greatly impacts the overall gameplay. Once I become more comfortable with UnrealED to the point where I feel I can take advantage of all that it's capable of, I'm going to pick up some level designing books which teach more of the gameplay aspects of level design and what makes a level successful. I think game and level design is a much more suitable career path for me, being a highly creative and technical field. I have no doubts I'll keep at it and become more proficient with it as each day passes. Once I've mastered UnrealEd, I plan on learning how to use Hammer so I can re-create my childhood neighborhood for my brother and I to play Left 4 Dead on. Now THAT will be a challenge.

**** YOU!

PAYNE!

Finally, Max Payne 3 has been announced. It made my year. Max Payne has been my favorite series and only a Duke Nukem Forever release date could get me more excited. Remedy isn't developing, however I have faith that Rockstar will faithfully give a Max Payne game that the fans deserve (more of the same isn't a bad thing R*!). Keeping my fingers crossed that the overall design and feel of the series isn't altered all that much, if at all.

I leave for GDC early tomorrow morning. I'm extremely excited, yet nervous at the same time. I feel like I'm going to be a small goldfish in a shark pond.

If this was true, I wouldn't have failed Chem

There is no tree

First time I had to double look to tell whether what I was looking at was real or not. CryENGINE 2.

God, I hope they bounded

 

I promise, little backtracking

Thanks to Podcast 17 for talking about Neptune. I'm glad to hear you're looking forward to it and I hope you gain even more interest for the game as we release more and more media as the release creeps up on us.