Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

We naturally prefer 2D (unlike alien fish)

Posted on January 25, 2009

Why do I make 2D games? Is it because its’s easier? or because it’s the best format for the games I make? It’s the latter and here is why.

For games that involve strategy, humans naturally think in 2D. We exist in a 3D world, but strategically, we operate in 2D. We think about our environment generally on a 2D plane.  We navigate from point to point using 2D maps. Computer operating systems work almost entirely using 2D metaphors (Have you EVER used the flip3D feature in windows vista?).

I don’t think this is surprising. We are descended from apes (creationists stop reading now), whose predators attacked us on land, not from below or above. We spend the vast majority of our time on the same level as those around us. Even if we work in multi-storey buildings, we think of each floor as a seperate 2D space. Unless you are a submarine captain or fighter pilot, your concept of 3D space is probably hugely limited. I’m sure alien worlds with super-intelligent fish and birds are natural 3D strategy gamers, but not us.

And yet some strategy games still try and force us to play them in 3D. Thankfully, most game designers have finally realised that *true* 3D is generally more trouble than it’s worth. For every gamer who embraced Descent or Homeworld as the greatest thing ever, there were hundreds who found it thoroughly confusing. It might make for great screenshots, but not for great gameplay, at least not for everyone.

Sins of a Solar Empire and Company of Heroes are great examples of games whose makers realise that 3D makes for great trailers and box shots, but lousy gaming. Company of Heroes actually restricts the camera into a pseudo-isometric fixed view, allowing you to zoom in for no adequately explored reason other than to take screenshots to show off your graphics card. Every single player of the game plays at maximum zoom, because thats the only way to have any concept of what is going on. Spinning the camera around 360 may make for great GDC trailers, but its entirely unsuitable for actually controlling an army. People lose orientation very easily. Being able to spin the world around you is great in theory. In practice, you just forget which direction is which. (If spinning the map made so much sense, army commanders would have had circular map tables :D)

3D isn’t new or exciting in 2009, It’s just another option in the toolkit. Game designers need to get over the 3D obsession and make more considered design decisions. Some genres work great in 3D, some don’t. Large scale battles work best in 2D and probably will right up until we are all commuting to work in flying cars.

Long live the future of 2D strategy games.

Website video. No thanks

Posted on January 24, 2009

Ok, so lots of people have broadband now. Yipeee. But just because I have decent bandwidth, doesn’t mean that video is always preferable to text. A lot of the time when I’m surfing, someone else is watching TV or having a conversation. I’m sat there reading the web, just like I’d read a book. Someone might even be asleep, (human or cat). In other words, in a lot of these situations sound is not desirable.

Plus I read quickly, very very quickly, and videeo rarely keeps up with the speed I want information. Because of this, again, video is inferior to text for me in the case of spoken word information.

I find TV weather reports unwatchable. minute after minute of some gormless fool waving his/her arms around and trying to ‘engage’ with the audience. Get over yourselves, you are there to tell me two things, the temperature and the chance of rain. Everything else is filler. Weather reports should be capped at 12 seconds.

Online video is obviously a great thing, but ONLY when it’s better than text. Would this blog post be better if it was a video of me sat there reading it? I doubt it, but I just wish a lot more web sites realised this. Thats my complaint of the day :D

Hiring the best person for the job

Posted on January 23, 2009

I just agreed a contract with my first contractor to work on ‘The Space Game’. I basically trawled the internet for the best nebula photoshop tutorials, the best nebula textures for sale, and the best examples I could find of people drawing spacey nebula backdrops. I then found my preferred artist, and managed to contact them on a web message board and then later discuss budgets and artwork.

What I find interesting about the procedure is I had no idea who this artist was. As it turns out, said individual is male, in his twenties and from California. But the key thing is, I had no idea. He/she could be female, he/she could be black/hispanic/white. They could be disabled,  obese,  have any number of other characteristics, and I don’t know and likely never will.

which is exactly how it should be.

I’m employing this guy to do artwork for me, and all I care about is how good the artwork is, and how professionally they do the work. I don’t need to know anything else about them, and I think it’s in many ways a great thing for employers in general not to do so. The reason I think this, is because as more and more people get employed in this way, it’s really going to help reduce sexism, ageism, racism and all other forms of discrimination.

I once worked for a guy who said he wouldn’t have given me the job if he’s noticed during the interview I’d once had my ear pierced. he also proudly told me he’d never employ anyone black, or with a foreign sounding name. What a scumbag. As it goes, I’m average weight, male, white, and have a london accent, which means in the UK I’m probably the least discriminated person imaginable. I *did* get a lot of grief as a teenager and twentiesomething for having long hair though.

Anyway, I’m rambling now, but I just thought it worth noting that at the same time that the USA gets it’s first ever black president, there is a constant revolution going on amongst people doing ‘virtual’ work, where what color you are not only doesn’t matter, it’s’ not even information your employer will ever have unless you want them to.

That’s my thought for the day.

Inauguration discount

Posted on January 20, 2009

Uk indie developer Positech games are celebrating the inauguration of the first Black president of the USA with a special offer for one day only. A special celebration edition of the political strategy game ‘Democracy 2’ is on sale today for just $9.95 instead of the usual $24.95. This edition has the same gameplay as usual, but the political quotes in the game all come from Barack Obama, and his image is featured in the menu screens for the game.
A special web page has been set up just for today for people to download a demo of this version and buy it here:
http://www.positech.co.uk/democracy2…ter_obama.html

dugg:

http://digg.com/pc_games/Indie_Strategy_game_less_than_half_price_on_inauguration_day

The New Game

Posted on January 19, 2009

So what is this space game all about then?

Well it’s basically a big space battle simulator. A top-down, 2D space battle strategy game with no resource management, empire building, exploration or diplomacy.  The game is influenced by a number of things, in visual terms, I’m inspired by the stupidly big battles at the end of star trek:ds9 and the start of revenge of the sith. In game terms, it’s inspired slightly by galactic civ II, and partly by an old pen and paper RPG called traveller.

 

One of the books of traveller was called ‘trillion credit squadron‘, and it was based around the players being given a trillion credits to design and build a big space fleet (with certain restrcitions) to fight other players. That’s the basis of the gameplay for this currently un-named game. There will not be a big story, it’s basically a case of build a big fleet, send it into battle and enjoy the fun. I’ll be trying to make the battles look as good as 2D battles can look.

There is a lot more to the game than this, but that will come later. All my art is placeholder right now, so obviously there will be original spaceship designs. I haven’t found my spaceship artist or backdrop artists yet. In fact I haven’t started looking yet. Even now, it looks pretty cool in a big 1900×1200 window with maybe 40-50 ships a side. I hope to scale it up way way beyond that.