Media Shifters » Technical Production

Dear Duke Nukem: Compromise Is Part of the Process

Andrew — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:48:53 +0000

There are plenty of lessons to be learned from the decade long debacle of Duke NukemForever, but the key one here, I think, is that any creative process is going to have elements of disappointment when you launch. Things you imagined would be better but aren’t, or ideas that you hoped would flourish but didn’t. But at some point you have to look at what you have, and try to make that great. Otherwise you’ll either end up making more, and more drastic, compromises then you ever expected, or not ever shipping at all.

Ironically, the end was within reach, even if Broussard couldn’t see it. Raphael van Lierop, who was hired in 2007 as a creative director, was given several pieces of the game to play. It took him about five hours. Broussard was stunned; he’d thought those levels would take half that time to get through. “You could see the gears turning, with him thinking, ‘Oh wow — maybe we’ve got more game than we think,’” says van Lierop. Broussard had been staring at the game for so long, he’d lost perspective.

Van Lierop was excited: From what he’d seen of it, Duke Nukem Forever was so well developed — and so graphically superior to any other game in production — that if 3D Realms pushed hard for a year, they could release it and “blow everyone out of the water.” No, no, Broussard replied. It was two years out. Van Lierop was stunned. “I thought, ‘Wow, how many times have you been here, near the finish line, and you thought you were way out?’”

https://robot.boxofficetickets.com/800-494-TIXS/WebObjects/BOTx2005.woa/wa/inspectProgram?id=87915&passKey=5c5870d14c&idForNetwork=11&passKeyForNetwork=2442b46312

An Eightfold Path for Social Game Development

Andrew — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:13:19 +0000

Someone asked about what it takes to create a social game. This is incredibly stripped down, but here is my basic formula I use with my clients:

1) Figure out what your fundamental gameplay dynamic is going to be as early as possible. IE, what is it the fundamental unit of play that the user is actually going to be doing (including the physical button/key presses)?
2) Define and integrate your social model and your monetization model.
3) Express your concept in wireframes.
4) Determine the minimum viable level of product you will need for launch.
5) Determine the size of your post-launch including your development window, goals, and top priorities.
6) Execute on development.
7) Launch.
8) Begin to execute on your post-launch goals. These will change based on metrics and user requests.

Completing some later steps will often send you back to step one. Don’t be afraid to loop.

You’re Still Inside a Web Browser

Andrew — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:43:40 +0000

One major aspect of Social Platform Games that people tend to ignore is that they are all still played in a web browser.

Flash has come a long way over the last decade, and the games are getting better all the time, even if they’re not quite up to application quality in terms of stability and power. So it’s easy to forget that there are inherent technical and practical limitations that come from running a game inside an browser application designed to work across multiple operating systems and desktops.

In some ways those limitations are good thing. And interestingly, it’s also something they share with their big brothers on core platforms like the Xbox and the Wii. It changes how they need to be structured, because in both cases you never know when the user is going to decide to suddenly shut off the application.