The Art of Developing Games-Part 2

The Art of Developing Games 
Part 2: Developers talk about the Art of Gaming
By Michael Lafferty 

This is a tale about developers of three games,
three developers who have diverged ideas about what games are about and how to
approach the idea of creating games. To recap, please see the first of these
interviews. You can view them at http://gzdev.wpengine.com/news/06_07_01_11_11AM.htm

This is a bit redundant, but it needs
repeating. The publisher is Gathering of Developers, but the three individuals
who gave of their time all belong to different development companies. Stepping
up to field these questions are Eric Ouellette of FireFly Studios, Phil
Steinmeyer of PopTop Studios, and Tim Gerritsen of Human Head Studios, Inc.
First, a little bit about the games that each represents.

Ouellette is associated with Stronghold. Termed
a cross between city building games and real-time strategy outings, Stronghold
is set in medieval Europe. Players have to establish settlements and create
living communities, teaming to gather and manufacture resources. The game’s
combat element focuses on castle defense and siege warfare.

Steinmeyer’s product is the civilization game
Tropico. Set in the Caribbean, Tropico puts players into the role of an island
dictator (or president, if you prefer to deny the truth). You must manage
resources, develop a tourist industry, keep your citizenry happy, and skim as
much money as you can for your Swiss bank account. Or if you are the honest
kind, you’ll give everything back to the people. The game has drawn rave
reviews for it’s incredible graphics and calypso feel.

Gerritsen has been associated with Rune: Halls
of Valhalla, an arena-style team combat expansion for the Viking saga Rune.
Rune followed a young warrior’s quest for vengence, battling back from the
bowels of the Earth with the intent to bury his battle-axe in the skull of the
traitor who sent his village’s warriors to their final resting place. The
expansion pack allows players to select a character, team up with others and
carry on the spirit of Viking warfare in the friendly confines of cyber space.

As mentioned, the same questions were asked of
each. Due to the length of interviews, and the answers, this column will be
divided into two parts. Without further ado, let’s delve into the world of
developers.

Now on to the next sequence of questions …

Question: Considering the length of time a
game is in development, when beginning to lay down the coding, are there
minimum system requirements that you aim for, or does the program dictate the
system requirements? If new technology comes down the pike, something that
enables graphical quality unlike any seen before, and your program is four
months into development, can you backtrack to incorporate that technology?
What I am asking is how do your keep games abreast of the latest technological
developments?

Ouellette: “When we started to build
the engine for Stronghold, we looked at what we thought would be reasonable
system requirements given the current machines and what we estimated the
average machine out there would be when we shipped. We do keep up on the
latest technology and include it where we can.”

Steinmeyer: “Generally, a game takes
about 2 years to develop. Conveniently, we try to target a minimum hardware
spec thats equal to the average new PC you could buy about 2 years before our
game comes out. So, basically, whatever is current when we start a game
becomes the minimum spec when we finish it.

“Of course, we pile on lots of extra graphic
detail for more powerful machines, and we can generally support new grpahical
features up to about 6 months before the game is complete.”

Gerritsen: “Over the years this has
always been an issue that bites you on the butt. If you guess low, you run the
risk of looking dated, but if you guess high, you risk alienating your market.
Few are the apps that made us run out and by new equipment (Wing Commander was
one, and in general Origin did a have a knack for making people buy better
equipment to play their games). I would have to say that typically developers
guess low, and then develop high. What I mean to say is, let’s look at our
experience with Rune. When we started, if you had said that the recommended
system would be a P3 or Athalon system running at around 450Mhz, I would have
thought you were crazy. However, though the game will run on slower systems,
that is the sweet spot we ended up with.

“However, I would argue that the whole case
for hardware has changed somewhat. When I first got into the industry, systems
were slow at everything. It didn’t matter if you were in a word processor, a
graphics program, a database or a spreadsheet. If you created something, it
was a slow process. There was great impetus to upgrade your system, even if
you were doing it purely for games (which many gamers did) because you could
justify it, even if only to yourself, that all of these other apps would be
faster as well. Also, back then, I believe the percentage of computer owners
who also gamed was much higher. Now, most day-to-day apps run fine with at
least a P2 and a decent level of memory. You don’t need a 1.7Ghz P4 in order
to write email, or create a flyer, or edit photographs. The only reason to
upgrade is to play cooler games or for higher end apps like 3D applications
such as animation or CAD. Combine this with the fact that even though there
are more gamers overall, the percentage of computer users who are also gamers
has decreased as more people who never play games buy computers. This will
make it tougher in the next few years, as designers have to develop games
across a MUCH wider range of systems, from a P3/Athlon 450 to a P4/Athlon
2.5Ghz machine. That’s a hell of a lot of difference in performance. I think
until we see a fundamental change in the tech to a whole new level of
performance, there won’t be as much impetus to upgrade beyond gamers.”

Q: Can you give me a little background
information? Where you obsessed with games as a child? What kind of
educational background do you have? What are your favorite games to play? How
did you get into this line of work?

Ouellette: “My gaming experience
started with the Commodore 64, Space Invaders and asteroids then later went on
to the wizardry series, Risk, Ultima series and Doom. There were lots of games
in-between, but those had the biggest impact growing up. I have a degree in
economics and got into the game industry as a QA tester for Impressions
Software. The funny thing about being a game developer is that you are so busy
building games, you have less and less time to actually play any. These days
if I have some extra time I usually play a game that I can get in and out of
in an hour like Quake.”

Steinmeyer: “Yes, I was a gaming geek
as a kid (and teased about it by my older brothers). I started with an Atari
2600 back in 1978 (at the beginning), moved up through a TI-99 and a Commodore
64.

“I was a finance major in college and never
really considered gaming as a career. I ended up as a programmer after
college, and started my first game (a wargame called Iron Cross), more as an
exercise to teach myself C/C++ than anything else. Fortunately, it ended up
being published, allowing me to get into the biz full-time, and eventually
winding up in my current posiiton.”

Gerritsen: “I’ve always been obsessed
with all forms of games. When I was a kid, I played all manner of board games
and backyard games every day. It was also a time when arcades were just
beginning to transistion from the old mechanical novelty games where you shot
ball bearings at plastic targets to the first real video games. I remember
that each summer a friend of mine’s mom would have a month long rummage sale,
and during that time, we’d run the sale and play board games all day long.
Then at night we’d go play kick ball and murder ball (a fairly brutal form of
dodgeball).

“As I got older, and video games came more
onto the scene, I remember scraping what money I could for the week (usually
$5 or so) and then me and my friends would walk to the arcade and spend it all
on games. Afterwards, we’d play role-playing or board games the rest of the
night.

“My folks didn’t have much money, so the
first video game system I got was an Atari VCS about three years after they
were popular, and only because I traded for it. Because we didn’t have money,
I was always inventing games on my own. They started out as simple games
(after playing Ultima I on a friend’s computer, I wrote my own paper version
of it strictly from memory of having played it once- it turned out to be a
blast!)

“I remember seeing Dark Tower one Christmas,
and there was no way my parents could afford it. Based on one commercial I saw
of what the game played like, I wrote my own version of the game based on what
I thought it should be like. Later, I was able to save enough paper route
money to buy it, but discovered that my paper version was way more fun that
the electronic version. Later I discovered tactical board wargames, and
started making my own versions of those.”

“As for the industry, that’s a weird story. I
have a strange educational blend. I was a Russian Linguist/Soviet Analyst for
the Navy, and my stint was up, I went back to college. I ended up getting a
degree in History, with a minor in Film. During school, I worked first as a
Software Etc. assistant manager, and later a sales manager for a computer
hardware dealer. I also was self taught on my Amiga at home. Meanwhile, I
still has my obsession for games. So it was either teach the history of
Russian film and play on the side, or combine all these weird interests into
one thing. I wrote a pen and paper RPG, and sent it out as a portfolio to
various companies. Dynamix was looking for someone with a unique blend of
skills to be lead designer on a flight sim dealing with the A-10. I did a
phone interview, and then a live interview, and they hired me at the end of
the live interview. The rest, as they say, is history.

“Boy, did I have a lot to learn, and at
Dynamix, I was amongst some real giants who I can only hope rubbed a tiny
portion of their genius off on me ? Damon Slye, Jeff Tunnell, Mike Jones, Mark
Crowe, John Cutter, and Pat Cook.”

Q: Do you ever second-guess something about
the finished product? How do you determine that the project is finished and
ready to go?

Ouellette: “I don’t think there is a
game developer out there who has released a game and thought – it’s
completely done. There are always at least 10 things you would like to do if
you had the time. If you stopped and implemented those, there would be a list
of another 10. I think the game is done when you have implemented all of the
major elements you really want to add, the game is fun to play and you have
tested the game to feel confident it is virtually bug free.”

Steinmeyer: “This reminds me of a
story I heard last year about a game that was running late, but the publisher
needed to ship it out to make their financial quarter. The developers
(novices, basically), were unsure if the game was ready, and asked their
producer how they would know when the game was done. The producer – ‘That’s
easy – when it’s Tuesday, the game is absolutely done, and then you’ll know…’

“We actually finished Tropico about 4 or 5
days before our absolute deadline. We were monitoring the rate of crashes
reported by testing. At the start of beta testing, it was one crash every 4
hours or so. A week before we mastered, it was one crash every 15 hours or so.
On the last couple days, we were down to 2 crashes, total, in 170 hours (i.e.
one crash every 85 hours). That was pretty good, so we stopped there rather
than risking breaking anything by puttering around some more with the game.”

Gerritsen: “Well, as a developer the
ship date is all to often forced upon us by the publisher. It’s very
frustrating to say the least, as publicly traded publishers, for the most
part, would rather ship and patch than wait a few extra weeks to really make
sure a game is tight. Developers definitely should be held to a schedule, but
I think investors would be better served by releasing a really polished, solid
title that gets good reviews and garners larger sales than by shipping
something unfinished and buggy to make quarter. If we had the money and the
ability, we would adopt the ‘when it’s done’ philosophy. However, few
developers have that kind of power and cash flow. Until then, we just fight
for what we can get.

“As for second guessing, I think that is a
dangerous path. We create commercial art, and like any form of art, the artist
is never 100% pleased with their work. There is always something you would
tweak or something you’d change. However, it has to ship sometime, and to that
end you make decisions that allow that to happen. Still, I do think publishers
underestimate how much work can be accomplished in just a week or two at the
end of a project. Even that little bit of time off makes the difference
between a mediocre game an a stellar hit.”

Q: The Internet and games are solid partners
simply because the Web gets the word out about games fast, and online
fan-based sites allow players the forum for discussion. Do you ever drop by to
hear what is being said about the games you have been involved with? How much
influence do these sites have when it comes to patches, or even product
development?

Ouellette: “After Stronghold is
release we will definitely be up on-line listening to what is being said. In
the past we have used suggestions from people on line for game patches and new
elements in sequels. Who better to listen to then people spending a lot of
time playing the game.”

Steinmeyer: “Yes, Tropico’s main
discussion boards are at www.cafetropico.com, and I (and others at PopTop), do
monitor them. I also read the games newsgroups (usenet). For Tropico, they
didn’t have a big impact on the game’s development, because most of these
users hadn’t played the game before it came out, and couldn’t comment real
meaningfully. However, they have had a significant impact on our patches and
how we’ve supported the game since it’s been released. For our last game,
Railroad Tycoon 2, we used Internet feedback a bit more in development,
because we had a demo out 7 weeks before the game mastered, and so the
Internet folks were commenting on the actual game demo, rather than magazine
previews. If we release a demo before our next game masters, we’ll use
Internet feedback again.”

Gerritsen: “Yes we do, and probably
too much. It’s easy to get sucked in and forget that you are talking with only
a very small percentage of your potential audience, and a very opinionated and
vocal group of them at that. These are the true grognards – the people who
love to grouse over this or that aspect of a game, and are too cynical for
their own good. They do influence us, and do affect the direction we go with
on an idea, but honestly, I don’t think the majority of gamers know what they
want. They scream for innovation and new concepts, but then run out in droves
to buy a game with a number after the title, or something based on some
license they are hot on at the moment. Meanwhile innovative products end up in
the cheap bin.

“Then there’s the old saying – you can’t
please all of the people all of the time. We aren’t about to go
person-to-person and ask what they want in a game. We’d end up with a million
different designs. That’s really the toughest part – dealing with the people
who say, ‘This game didn’t meet with every single one of MY personal
expectations.’ If they really expected that, they were being unrealistic in
the first place.

“Still, the fans are what it’s all about, and
we wouldn’t be here without them. Also, we’re all fans deep at heart, and we
grouse and bitch as much as the next guy when a game doesn’t live up to the
hype. That’s the hardest part of being a fan and a developer – you have to
constantly work at keeping from getting too cynical. We definitely want fan
feedback, but I can tell you that the fans who are civil, and thoughtful are
listened to much more carefully than the people who write, ‘You guys suck hard
because…’ “

Q: What do you think the future of gaming
will be?

Steinmeyer: “Avalon Hill shall rise
again! (and so will Atari, Commodore, and Amiga…)

“Seriously – I just hope there’s focus on
developing innovative original content and not just prettier shooters and RTS
games…”

Gerritsen: “Something unexpected, I’m
sure. I’m not really in the prediction business. I have my opinions, and see
certain trends starting to form, but that’s something we save for our business
discussions…

“I can tell you what I’d like to see, though
– a return to design over flash, to good controls over slop, substance over
hype, and to breaking the genre moulds the marketeers (you read that right)
have us all saddled into. Deus Ex was a great game, but it didn’t fit into a
nice little pigeon hole – therefore it was just pretty much thrown on the
market. When the industry first started, genres were pretty much not formed
yet, and it was a fun period of great amounts of innovation. No the first
thing we get asked by a publisher is ‘What game is it most like?" I doubt
you could explain something as weirdly different as ‘Pac-Man’ these days to a
publisher and have them be interested without a real visionary at the helm.”