List of Game Related Media now available in the Magale Library

Books

Bold Visions: the Digital Painting Bible

The Art of Blizzard Entertainment

Game Coding Complete

Digital Painting techniques

Game Design Workshop

Level Up!

Drawing Basics and Video Game Art

Reality is Broken

Challenges for Game Designers

Drawing and Painting Fantasy Landscapes and Cityscapes

The Mac is not a Typewriter (Graphic Design related)

The Non-Designers Design Book (Graphic Design related)

DVDs

The Illusionist: DVD

The Triplets of Belleville

The Secret of Kells

*An extensive e-book library of game related books will also be ordered soon.

Cutscenes: When are they necessary?

     Cinematics are stunningly pretty. Just look at Pixar; they make pretty 3D movies all the time. Games implement cutscenes in the form of cinematics just like Pixar, just not throughout the entire game. That would be absurdly expensive. Cutscenes are implemented as a storytelling device. They can look like an animated movie in some cases, but they have this little habit of stopping gameplay. 

 

      The worst cutscenes happen frequently throughout the game. It ruins pacing by acting like a roller coaster that goes up, gets stuck at the top, then falls down and goes up another incline, stops, then falls down again. I'm certain that the attention span of the player plummets much like this roller coaster when the cutscenes show up. Not to say that cutscenes should just be removed from all games, but if the scene stops gameplay for too long, the player will start to lose interest and put down the controller. You want to remind the player that they need to keep their hands on the controller just in case they need to start playing again. 

 

      The best cutscenes I have seen are in Half-Life 2. There isn't any widescreen black bars showing up at the top and bottom, control does not leave the player unless there is a real reason for it such as the character being immobilized, and the dialogue goes with subtitles and explains what is happening in a clear and concise manner. Sure, the action part of this acclaimed shooter might not be happening during this cutscene, but the player still assumes control of Gordon Freeman. Movement is still as free as it is during normal gameplay and shooting is still allowed (just don't shoot poor Eli Vance).

      Another good example of cutscenes done right is Final Fantasy 9. Cutscenes are basically still in game with dialogue boxes and characters move wherever they like. Once the dialogue ends, a little white gloved hand appears on top of the main character and the player immediately knows he/she is in control again. This game has very few cinematics and requires no vocal dialogue to convey the story.

      A bad example of cutscenes would be Okami. As much as I love this game, it has this big gaping flaw: the introduction. Okami tries to explain its premise and setting, but takes way too long to do it. It takes over 20 minutes to elaborate on what is going on! Not only that, the entire sequence cannot be skipped! The best way to fix this is to cut it down to 3-5 minutes, then let the rest of the game explain what is happening. The strange thing is Okami even repeats itself throughout the game, constantly reminding players of the story behind Orochi and the 100 years that have passed since Shiranui took Orochi down. If a cutscene is too long, the player will get frustrated and might even consider skipping everything (or if they cannot, just to quit altogether). 

 

      The point is this: cutscenes can help convey a story, but don't overdo it. Too many cutscenes makes it feel like a movie and a long intro will derail the entire thing. The best way to tell the story of a game is to let the player just play through it. Provide some dialogue for necessary parts and maybe use cinematics for anything that could be plot critical such as a major twist in the plot. Cutscenes can help, but are not always necessary.

RPGs

      Rocket propelled grenades are... eh. Wrong RPG. Let's start again.

      Role-playing games are exactly what it sounds like: a game in which the player assumes roles. Any game that has the player take on the role of fulfilling a specific duty qualifies it as an RPG. By this logic, all games are RPGs. You're playing a game about a treasure hunter who follows clues around the world to find something that may or may not actually be real? Uncharted has you playing the role of a treasure hunter. Are you taking control of an airplane that moves vertically and horizontally across a horizontally revolving screen? That means you are playing as a pilot in Resogun.

      However, the term RPG generally refers to games that have the player controlling characters of multiple roles. Most of these games happen to take place in a fantasy universe such as Dragon Age or Final Fantasy. The most common roles played involve some basic archetypes such as the Warrior, the Mage, the Archer, or even the Cleric. Many RPGs have branched from these archetypes to make their own character classes, but the base formula is present in all existing RPGs. 

 

      The thing about classes in most RPGs is to see which characters the player feels most suited for. Let's say you are the kind of person who feels like you could take on the world. If someone looks at you funny, you just want to sock them in the face and let them know that you keep your hair messy on purpose! That is the personality of the Warrior. Warriors typically rush into the heat of battle, can take as much damage as they can deal, and are just so intimidating and unstoppable. Or maybe you like to fight from a distance and want to dispatch your enemies without causing too much of a ruckus. Archers are great at that. You like to deal damage from afar and can run away when things get too hectic.

 

      That's the great thing about these kinds of games. Any role you want to try and fulfill, the character classes allow you to do just that. Granted, not every RPG branches far beyond the base four types, but if you play enough, you can find your niche. I personally like the guy who is extremely hard to kill. I do not mind not being able to deal monstrous amounts of damage. I just want to make the enemy focus on me whilst the rest of the team slips on by and completes the objective. That's why I play a Prot Paladin in WoW. Very hard to kill, draws in the animosity of the enemies, lets the damage dealers bring extreme prejudice upon the colossal abominations that are raid bosses, and I feel as if I control the tide of the fight. But hey, if anyone dies, it was that stupid Shaman's fault. 

 

      RPGs usually limit a player to choosing one class and sticking with it. There are several games that allow the changing of roles in the middle of the game. Any strategy game such as Final Fantasy Tactics has characters with numerous class options. The characters themselves may be stuck with one class, but you as the player can control all of these people. Dislike all those Squires? Consider training one of them to be a Knight. If Knight is more to your liking, make all of those Squires into Knights! Maybe even let one be a Monk and see how that works out.

      Another good example is Team Fortress 2. This game has nine total classes categorized by primary role: Assault, Defense, and Support. Scouts, Soldiers, and Pyros are all Offense. Let's say you want to try the Soldier. Big commander looking dude with a rocket launcher, a shotgun, and a shovel for good measure. However, he feels slow to you. You keep dying to everybody. Fortunately, you are not stuck with the Soldier forever. Once you die, you can select a new class to try. You pick the Scout, notice he runs insanely fast, has a double jump, a shotgun, a pistol, and a metal baseball bat! This guy feels more your style. Tired of the Scout? Try the Heavy and see how long it takes for everyone to take you down!

      Roles are the most important aspect of a role-playing game, but another essential to the genre is stats and progressions. Stats (also known as “attributes”) affect the parameters of your character. The higher your stats, the more effective you are. Most common stats include Attack, Defense, Health, Mana, Speed, and Luck. These branch out and get complex in some games such as Dark Souls, but they all stem from these common base stats. Attack governs damage done against an enemy. Defense affects how resistance the player is to damage taken from foes. Health governs how much damage the player can take before they die. Mana is usually an energy source for special attacks. Speed can affect movement speed or attack speed. Luck is the most ambiguous, but it most commonly represents chances of success with critical damage. 

 

      As for progression, this works differently for RPGs. Traditional progression in games is done through levels. In almost every other genre, these levels are literally brand new maps and stages. In RPGs, these levels are given to characters themselves. Players will start at level 1. Sometimes it's higher and sometimes they start at level 0, but level 1 is the most common starting point. As the player gains experience points they gain levels. Experience points (EXP or XP) is frequently acquired by killing enemy monsters. Sometimes experience can be gained through exploring a new area. Once enough XP is gained, the character gains a level. Gaining a level gives stat boosts to all of the character's parameters. 

 

      Some systems get creative such as with Chrono Cross. Chrono Cross has no levels, but there is still stat progression. When a boss is killed, players gain a Growth Star. Players can then kill more monsters to earn more stat gains. As more monsters are killed, the bonuses gained from each fight suffer diminishing returns until no more stat gains are made. This encourages players to grind a little bit after a boss fight, but it also does not punish players who don't bother to grind at all. I think XP might be too focused on monster killing. It should be allowed to branch out into other activities such as exploration or story progression. Which brings me to the most vital aspect of RPGs: the story.

      RPGs have gained a reputation for having excellent stories. Games such as Final Fantasy, Valkyrie Profile, Chrono Trigger, and even Borderlands have well executed storylines. Most are to the point that they are all the game focuses on. Some of these stories are so long they require multiple discs to hold everything! The average playtime invested in an RPG stands at 40 hours. The story will usually take up to 12 of those hours. The rest is side quests, exploration, and grinding. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I think I would make the story a bit longer and have the grinding take up less time.

      There's a lot more to RPGs than I can list here, but hopefully this gives you all some idea of what I think of this genre. It's my favorite genre of all games. It's kind of getting melded into other game genres, so finding a good standalone RPG is hard right now. Hopefully I can make my own RPG someday. Until then, somebody better make a really good one soon!

Showcase Pick

     Was thinking of letting people try out one of two games at the next meeting. I brought my Wii and I have two remotes with a nunchuku and classic controller. The games I had in mind were Sonic Colors and Xenoblade Chronicles. My question is does anyone have a preference over which one I should bring first?

     On a side note, hope you all enjoyed your Spring Break.

Thoughts on Portal 2 and Naruto Ninja Storm 3

     Not everyone was able to attend our most recent meeting, but we still had some fun seeing how these two games would fare for a potential tournament. For those of us who did get to play, what did you all think of Portal 2 and Naruto? 

     To me, the two are big contrasts of each other. In Portal 2, players are working as a team to complete their objective. If anyone dies, it is usually the fault of that player, not his buddy. There are those instances that somebody inadvertently kills the other player, but I'm sure those are just coincidental. As for Naruto Ninja Storm 3, players fight each other for the thrill of high speed battle and the glory of victory! It's an easy to pick up fighter with simple controls and a satisfying combat system. 

     I really enjoyed my time with both games. I do have a leaning towards Portal 2 as I would rather work WITH a companion rather than fight against them. You have no idea how many friendships can be broken over a simple fighting game.

Exploration

     What is exploration? It is the action of getting lost for the sake of adventure and wonder. At least in my definition. No clue what a dictionary might say, but that is how I see it. Now most of us likely aren't secret archaeologists who venture into temples and plunder treasure Indiana Jones style. We still might hold this desire, though. Games can fulfill that desire through simulation. This is why I like games in the Point-and-Click Adventure genre or First Person Exploration games. But how do these games give us that feeling of adventure and wonder?

      They give us just one simple rule: do whatever you want. The rule is always implied through gameplay, but never explicitly stated. The object of the game is to explore everything. That is what makes Point-and-Click a fun genre for me. Take Machinarium for example. You start off as this little robot named Josef. You gradually discover what he can and cannot do. After you have all of that figured out, you learn to click on anything that might stand out. You also pick up items and use them with other items to see what happens. In some cases, you can come up with unlikely combinations that surprise you. These combinations can help you progress through the game and open up new areas to explore.

      In other games that take exploration from a first person perspective, it feels easier to be immersed in the world. As you look around, you see everything through the character's eyes, but it almost feels like it is your own vision. It feels as if you are doing all of the exploring. It's a wonderful experience.

However, incorporating exploration into a game that isn't all about the adventure is tricky. If the game is too linear, the player just feels like they should follow the rails and if there is a path they could branch off of, they almost never take it. It's almost like a form of “pseudo-exploration.” Branching paths is not a fun mechanic for discovering new things. It's just a hallway that leads to a somewhat useful object, and then turning around to get back on the rails again.

      I see Borderlands 2 as a big offender to exploration. Yes, it is a game with large maps and places to go that are not linear, but I have one big complaint about it: map markers. When you want to finish a quest objective, just follow the diamond shaped icon on the map and you will be there. It makes reading the text of questlines pointless. And when they offer one quest that does encourage you to get lost and actually go looking for something on your own, it feels insulting because it deviates from the norm the game has already established! That norm is the rule of “Go here to do the thing, then turn in to progress.” I still like the game. I just dislike the sense of exploration that isn't all there.

      The best form of exploration I have seen? Xenoblade Chronicles. If you own a Wii or Wii U and you haven't played this game, go buy it. The developers went through utter hell to get this localized for America. The game lets you roam anywhere you want so long as it is humanly possible to traverse the environment. As much as I want to trek that mountain, it's too steep. But that's alright! It makes sense that I cannot do that. When you have a job to take care of, the quest text tells you the general area to go, then you figure out the rest. It feels great when you find what you are looking for. The only bad thing about this is the text can sometimes be misleading. One quest directed me to go north when the actual objective was northwest. Took a very long time to find the objective because the quest text directed me to a specific area and I felt I was limited to searching THAT particular area, not any of the other areas that might be close by. Other than that, this game has incredibly good exploration and it feels like a world you would want to live in.

      In short, exploration's main rule is to do whatever you want, but only if it is possible within the game's conventions. It should also be careful in how it makes the player feel about what they can do. Telling the player they can look in a tomb and find a treasure of incredible value is just fine. It might obviously be located at the back, but to the player it could be anywhere! Telling the player exactly where something is just ruins the whole experience. Making up for that failure much later in the game by telling them to “just find it” just messes with the player's head.

Music: How it makes games considerably better

     There are many aspects that make up a game. The first ones we usually think of are graphics, the engine, programming, animating, playability, and even polish. There is one aspect I believe is highly overlooked: music. 

 

      Game developers will do either one of two things: they will either pay to have certain songs played in their games or they will make their own music. The ones that pay other artists to use their pre-existing songs almost feel like they get the rights to the song JUST to play that song. Even if it barely fits the moment, that song is in there. As for those who make their own music, sometimes they lack good composers. Often the music is just a short track that loops endlessly. 

 

      So what does good game music sound like? It sounds a bit like this:

 

     That was from a game known as VVVVVV (or just say “vee”). The style is chiptune and for an 8-bit graphic game, chiptune works wonders. Now imagine a game with higher end graphics. They likely require higher quality music as well. Here's another sample:

 

     That was from Dust: An Elysian Tail. It's one of the first soundtracks you hear when you start playing. What is so great about this track? It gives you this feeling of adventure and wonder. It sparks emotions you didn't even know you had! That is how you make good music. Didn't feel anything? Well then listen to this:

     This track alone almost made me cry because it's so beautiful. It fits the moment so well. Here I am running through this marsh during the daytime and I hate the place. It's foggy, monsters are trying to kill me, I can't figure out where to go, the soundtrack currently playing is “meh,” and I am starting to lose my patience. Then nightfall comes. The flora of the marsh begin to glow and shimmer with brilliant lights. The monsters go away. Then the soundtrack changes to this. It's so wonderful I can barely keep a straight face. If this doesn't invoke some form of emotion in you, then I don't know what will.

      The GDC doesn't exactly have a lot of Music majors, but it would be great if we could have their input on certain songs. If you do have an interest in music and video games, I would look into the works of Yasunori Mitsuda, Yoko Shimomura, and the legendary Nobuo Uematsu. They make excellent soundtracks for games.