The secret to crafting Portal’s perfect blend of gameplay and story, according to Kim Swift and Eric Wolpaw, was to cut, cut, and cut some more.
Speaking to a standing room only crowd at GDC, Wolpaw and Swift explained that Portal’s design goal was that the “story story” — the actual plot of the game, with GLaDOS the insane AI and the Weighted Companion Cube — and the gameplay story, the puzzle solving and portal flinging.
“Portal was going to be a mean storytelling machine if it killed us,” said Wolpaw.
Wolpaw referred to this philosophy as achieving a “low story delta,” meaning that the gameplay and the plot were so carefully intertwined that one simply wouldn’t work without the other. “By itself the story wouldn’t make much of a novel, and the gameplay on its own would be dry,” explained Swift.
Clive Barker’s Undying is an example of a game with a high story delta, said Wolpaw. The gameplay story is fast paced first person shooter action, but the story story is a very deep, high concept mystery in a spooky mansion.
The result is that one minute, you’re running for your life, shooting everything in sight, and the next minute you’re in a plot-advancing cutscene having a perfectly calm conversation with the hired help. “The two stories make absolutely no sense when you smoosh them together,” said Wolpaw.
Playtesting was crucial to to figuring out what parts of the game had to be cut. “If players can’t recall the story, it isn’t working,” said Swift. The solution for resolving playtesting issues was “almost always to cut more story,” explained Wolpaw.
Such cuts led to one of the most legendary bits of graffiti ever, “The cake is a lie.” Originally, the team designed an NPC they called “The Rat Man,” who was a previous test subject that had gone a little loopy. The team realized that they could provide the same exposition and deliver the same (or perhaps an even stronger) emotional punch by letting you find the rambling scrawls he left behind on the walls.
As for the inclusion of “Still Alive,” the song that wraps up your Portal experience, that’s just to get you to finish the game with a smile on your face. “A catchy song always makes people happy,” said Swift.
The secret to crafting Portal’s perfect blend of gameplay and story, according to Kim Swift and Eric Wolpaw, was to cut, cut, and cut some more.
Speaking to a standing room only crowd at GDC, Wolpaw and Swift explained that Portal’s design goal was that the “story story” — the actual plot of the game, with GLaDOS the insane AI and the Weighted Companion Cube — and the gameplay story, the puzzle solving and portal flinging.
“Portal was going to be a mean storytelling machine if it killed us,” said Wolpaw.
Wolpaw referred to this philosophy as achieving a “low story delta,” meaning that the gameplay and the plot were so carefully intertwined that one simply wouldn’t work without the other. “By itself the story wouldn’t make much of a novel, and the gameplay on its own would be dry,” explained Swift.
Clive Barker’s Undying is an example of a game with a high story delta, said Wolpaw. The gameplay story is fast paced first person shooter action, but the story story is a very deep, high concept mystery in a spooky mansion.
The result is that one minute, you’re running for your life, shooting everything in sight, and the next minute you’re in a plot-advancing cutscene having a perfectly calm conversation with the hired help. “The two stories make absolutely no sense when you smoosh them together,” said Wolpaw.
Playtesting was crucial to to figuring out what parts of the game had to be cut. “If players can’t recall the story, it isn’t working,” said Swift. The solution for resolving playtesting issues was “almost always to cut more story,” explained Wolpaw.
Such cuts led to one of the most legendary bits of graffiti ever, “The cake is a lie.” Originally, the team designed an NPC they called “The Rat Man,” who was a previous test subject that had gone a little loopy. The team realized that they could provide the same exposition and deliver the same (or perhaps an even stronger) emotional punch by letting you find the rambling scrawls he left behind on the walls.
As for the inclusion of “Still Alive,” the song that wraps up your Portal experience, that’s just to get you to finish the game with a smile on your face. “A catchy song always makes people happy,” said Swift.
The secret to crafting Portal’s perfect blend of gameplay and story, according to Kim Swift and Eric Wolpaw, was to cut, cut, and cut some more.
Speaking to a standing room only crowd at GDC, Wolpaw and Swift explained that Portal’s design goal was that the “story story” — the actual plot of the game, with GLaDOS the insane AI and the Weighted Companion Cube — and the gameplay story, the puzzle solving and portal flinging.
“Portal was going to be a mean storytelling machine if it killed us,” said Wolpaw.
Wolpaw referred to this philosophy as achieving a “low story delta,” meaning that the gameplay and the plot were so carefully intertwined that one simply wouldn’t work without the other. “By itself the story wouldn’t make much of a novel, and the gameplay on its own would be dry,” explained Swift.
Clive Barker’s Undying is an example of a game with a high story delta, said Wolpaw. The gameplay story is fast paced first person shooter action, but the story story is a very deep, high concept mystery in a spooky mansion.
The result is that one minute, you’re running for your life, shooting everything in sight, and the next minute you’re in a plot-advancing cutscene having a perfectly calm conversation with the hired help. “The two stories make absolutely no sense when you smoosh them together,” said Wolpaw.
Playtesting was crucial to to figuring out what parts of the game had to be cut. “If players can’t recall the story, it isn’t working,” said Swift. The solution for resolving playtesting issues was “almost always to cut more story,” explained Wolpaw.
Such cuts led to one of the most legendary bits of graffiti ever, “The cake is a lie.” Originally, the team designed an NPC they called “The Rat Man,” who was a previous test subject that had gone a little loopy. The team realized that they could provide the same exposition and deliver the same (or perhaps an even stronger) emotional punch by letting you find the rambling scrawls he left behind on the walls.
As for the inclusion of “Still Alive,” the song that wraps up your Portal experience, that’s just to get you to finish the game with a smile on your face. “A catchy song always makes people happy,” said Swift.
After Mike brought us our first real info and shots of Realtime World’s upcoming MMO APB, we’ve now got the first footage of the game in action. Looks like a nice break from - and alternative for those not interested in - the orcs-n-loot status quo. Above is some cops-n-robbers action, while after the click’s a walkthrough of the character customization utility.
Yesterday, Jonathan Blow organized a talk called “Experimental Gameplay Sessions,” where he pointed out some interesting, experimental indie games. I posted links to those games, but intentionally neglected to explain them for the purposes of forcing you to play them.
That’s not what I’m doing with the games mentioned in the “Nuances of Design” lecture. Before the talk started, Blow walked around with a USB drive of all the games he’d be talking about, so we could play them as he described what made them so special or unusual. Similarly, I’m gonna post you links to the games he talked about (the available ones, anyway) before describing their importance.
So, hit the jump for that.
Yesterday, Jonathan Blow organized a talk called “Experimental Gameplay Sessions,” where he pointed out some interesting, experimental indie games. I posted links to those games, but intentionally neglected to explain them for the purposes of forcing you to play them.
That’s not what I’m doing with the games mentioned in the “Nuances of Design” lecture. Before the talk started, Blow walked around with a USB drive of all the games he’d be talking about, so we could play them as he described what made them so special or unusual. Similarly, I’m gonna post you links to the games he talked about (the available ones, anyway) before describing their importance.
So, hit the jump for that.
From kotaku.com(1)/kotaku.com(2):
[QUOTE]
News of Microsoft’s democratization of indie game development was overshadowed this week by an increasing discontent among established indie developers that the company was halving the royalties paid to them for future Xbox Live Arcade projects, several well-informed sources told Kotaku.
Several developers directly affected by the cut told Kotaku that the once generous royalty share of 70 percent given to them by the company was within the past few months cut down to 35 percent.
Microsoft just responded to our request for comment with this statement:
“Xbox LIVE Arcade has long been known as the premier destination for digitally distributed original and classic games - making it a very appealing platform for game developers. We don’t disclose details on our business contracts, but what we can tell you is that we work closely with all of our partners to provide the Xbox 360 community with the best entertainment possible while making publishing a title on XBLA an attractive prospect.”
[/QUOTE]
Full Story: kotaku.com(1) | kotaku.com(2)
From kotaku.com(1)/kotaku.com(2):
[QUOTE]
News of Microsoft’s democratization of indie game development was overshadowed this week by an increasing discontent among established indie developers that the company was halving the royalties paid to them for future Xbox Live Arcade projects, several well-informed sources told Kotaku.
Several developers directly affected by the cut told Kotaku that the once generous royalty share of 70 percent given to them by the company was within the past few months cut down to 35 percent.
Microsoft just responded to our request for comment with this statement:
“Xbox LIVE Arcade has long been known as the premier destination for digitally distributed original and classic games - making it a very appealing platform for game developers. We don’t disclose details on our business contracts, but what we can tell you is that we work closely with all of our partners to provide the Xbox 360 community with the best entertainment possible while making publishing a title on XBLA an attractive prospect.”
[/QUOTE]
Full Story: kotaku.com(1) | kotaku.com(2)
Epic Games feels that one of the biggest issues with the recently released Unreal Tournament 3 is that due to the inclusion of console-friendly features (necessary for the games PlayStation 3 debut), the game lacks a lot of necessary polish.
Not only did UT3 Senior Producer Jeff Morris point to the obvious UI issues — which Epic’s President Mike Capps described simply as “fucked” — but he also revealed that a lot of the polish the company wanted to put into the title was simply not possible thanks to the constricting deadlines they had created for themselves by opting for a console release.
Thankfully the issue doesn’t affect the most important aspect of the game, the blazingly fast weapons-based combat, but after hyping new additions such as the title’s plot and the character customization only to have those features revealed to be quite underwhelming, let’s just hope UT3 isn’t considered a misstep in 5 years.
The DOJO week started off with stage from Luigi’s Mansion. The mansion is completely destroyable but will respawn after a little while. Tuesday was a double update showing off the Ice Climbers and Zelda’s special moves. On Thursday, Bowser’s special moves were revealed and Meteor Smash was explained.
Wednesday’s and today’s update after the jump.
