Today though I’m taking some downtime and making chocolates with the kids.

Should be interesting. If not interesting then at least messy.

I was so eager to finish the first draft of the Lazy Designer II that even a faulty keyboard could not stop me.

Have you spotted the problem yet :)

I’m going to take a couple days off from it and get back to some stories that have been pestering me to be written. Editing will start next week.

The current length is 46 000 words. The first book was about 22 000 words. One of the main things I will be doing during editing will be trimming some of the fat from the book and reorganizing the chapters (they are too long right now and need to be subdivided).

Despite the doubling in size I intend to release it at the same price as the first book. Unless anybody can give me a convincing argument why I shouldn’t do that…

Tools

To assess the types of tools you will need look at similar games, either internal to your studio or games made by other studios. If those other games shipped with tools it is easier to assess their tools (though be aware that sometimes the toolset shipping with the game are not the same tools that the developers used, or might not include all the tools). If you are still not certain of the tools used you can scour sites such as gamasutra, GDC archives, or try asking a developer specifically.

The Not-So Obvious Tools

I will start with describing software that is not generally considered game development software but does have a major effect on a designer’s productivity. Here’s an overview of how I have used various generic software in the past to assist in building games.

• Outlook This or any other advanced email program is used primarily for communication. I am a huge fan of email versus other forms of communication though for it to be effective all parties must use their email reasonably. Previous chapters detailed this more thoroughly but at a high level a strong email program should assist with improving a designer’s organizational skills, allow for vacations to be planned and communicated, and to set meetings up.
• Word This is a strong tool for writing design documents. Though I prefer a more advanced approach now (writing text in plaintext with markup and then exporting it to a variety of other formats as required) it is likely that you will be using Word, or an equivalent, to write your design documents. A later book will have more on documentation but there are a few points to keep in mind.Do not spend hours fleshing out features that have not been agreed upon at a high level. This wastes your time. Get approval before digging into the full details.

Standardize your documentation as much as possible. If all your documents look the same it is easier to train others to read them.

• Excel This is always a great tool for creating simple task lists or for a designer to break down a design document into a series of implementation steps. It can also be used for small-scale tracking of assets and bugs. If your company has a limited number of tools programmers available for custom graphing and data analysis work Excel can also be used to manipulate the data generated by your content toolset and display various graphs and other reports.
• Visio This is a great interface mock-up tool for those of us without good art skills (in fact one of my crude Visio maps was turned into a working city-map on Dragon Age: Origins long before artists had the resources to build the real map). Use it for mapping and concepting and to improve the aesthetics of otherwise bland design documents.
• Batch Files Batch files can automate a series of mundane tasks. They are worth exploring if you are often moving content from one location to another or need to convert files from one format to another.

Base Tools

These are the core design tools that I suspect most projects will utilize in some form or another.

• Area Maker This is the tool that the level artist will use to build the actual area, including geometry, texturing and other details. The more user friendly this tool is the larger the pool of potential level artists in the company. The most basic tool should allow for a designer to do a rough version of the level — just the major area contours and locations so they can begin populating the level and play testing. An artist would then go through the area later and finalize it.
• Creature Maker This tool allows the designer to build non player creatures, whether enemies, allies, or neutrals. At its simplest this might involve tweaking a creature built by art, and defining a few basic rules properties. More sophisticated tools might allow for substantial tweaking of form and function.
• Item Maker Like the creature maker but involving items that the player can find, pick up or interact with, and sometimes carry with them. These might be weapons, armor, clothing, or even plot items like keys.
• Sound There should be a method in the toolset to import existing sound and set up various parameters (these will vary based on platform and game type but general parameters might include the range of the sound, where the sound is triggered from and how the sound loops).
• Area Placement Tool Creatures, items, sounds and other objects are placed inside an area that has been made with the Area Maker. This tool should also allow for adding triggers or other devices to make actions happen when players reach particular locations within areas. It might also include subtools to facilitate day/night scheduling of NPCs, laying out walking paths, and so on.
• Scripting Language By this I mean the method in which a designer makes objects in the game do stuff. This might involve setting up a conversation, triggering a cinematic, or building a combat encounter. On projects like Dragon Age the scripting language is a light-weight programming language. On other projects a visual logic editor might be used instead. Regardless this tool should have embedded help for the designers using it and easy ways to test/debug their work.

Genre Specific Tools

A first person shooter probably does not require the same tools as a content heavy role-playing game. Each type of genre will require certain additional tools. Here are the additional tools you are likely to find in a current generation role playing game.

• Dialog editor Many story-driven RPGs require substantial dialog. Often this dialog requires multiple characters to participate in the dialog. A clean and concise dialog editor helps ensure that writers can focus on the quality of what they write rather than the technical details.
• Table Editing Not every aspect of the rule system can (or should) be made into a tool. Elements that are better represented as tables should be used as such. These might be lists of abilities or creature rankings or random encounter lists. However it can be beneficial to have these tables available (at least for viewing) inside the designer tools. Be cautious about allowing editing though… Excel is a better tool for editing tables than any internally developed tool.
• Spell/ability editor Certain rule system elements like spells or special abilities might require an editor or a scripting language hook of some kind and hence be editable in the toolset. If using a custom tool try to be clear on what the implemented ability will do in-game and where possible give hints (i.e., if damage scales depending on various factors give the designer some sliders so they can experiment with different damage models).
• Cinematics If your game will require a lot of cinematics and/or cinematic heavy dialog consider a tool. On the Neverwinter Nights expansion packs the designers were forced to hack cutscenes using the scripting language. Not only was it difficult to create a satisfying visual using this system it was also prone to numerous errors. If a significant portion of your game is going to use cutscenes then create a tool (or incorporate a third party tool). It will reduce cost and result in higher quality cutscenes.

Testing Tools

There are a handful of testing tools that may be worth considering. These are not necessarily tools used only by the quality assurance department but instead are tools that are useful for any team member who needs to test content in the game.
The primary tool to consider is a bug tracking tool.

• Want bug reports? A cumbersome interface will disincline testers from reporting bugs. If there are too many fields to fill in or if the tool is slow testers will only report the important bugs. Your bug reporting tool should make bug reporting fast and easy.
• Visibility All users should easily be able to see the bugs that they have submitted. This assists them in keeping track of which issues they should be harassing somebody about — you want to avoid bugs sitting around and atrophying. A tool that helps bug senders to be vigilant in following up improves overall project efficiency. Also this helps users from filing the same bug over and over!
• Auto-populate fields When possible auto populate fields such as release version, platform, time and day, current area the player is. Also fill in as much details about the player’s in-game status as feasible such as the random seed used to generate numbers and so on. The less the tester has to manually type the more time they will spend detailing the actual events leading up to the bug.
• Dialog If you have sophisticated dialog chaining, you need a method to output the most recent dialog so that it can be copy/pasted into bug reports. For spelling/grammar and localization errors exact text makes fixing the bugs faster.
• Reports There should be methods in which reports of open/closed bugs can easily be generated though I would caution about going overboard here. What you want to use is an open database of some sort to track your bugs. Then it becomes an easy matter later, if necessary, to hire a competent database programmer to build the various data views that managers and quality assurance require. Never choose a bug tool that makes the process of entering bugs difficult simply because it offers attractive looking reports. Reports are easy to make later.

So now that I’m seeing reports of SOPA and PIPA having been defeated by overwhelming negative opinion many are breathing sighs of relief. And others are cursing violently (but generally silently).

Among game developers and writers, my two primary areas of interaction, opinions are mixed.

Many are worried about piracy eating into their revenues. For freelance writers and indie game developers it does not take a lot of piracy to put a stranglehold on their revenue stream.

Still I think there’s a larger concern than pirates for content creators.

Why We Should Fear The $0.99 App and Novel

One interesting thing I’ve noticed since promoting my writing on various forums is the almost insatiable demand for novels that readers seem to have. While at first this is incredibly encouraging I quickly realized that for many this demand was paired with the reader’s demanding incredibly low prices, or even free work.

I’m not talking about people who think eBooks should be cheaper than print books. I’m in that camp. The prices on some titles are ridiculous. I’m talking about what appears to be a large number of vocal consumers who will not spend more than $0.99 for a novel or game.

Indie writers and developers have been praising the App store or Kindle self publishing because these tools have given them more exposure than they could have gotten a few years ago. This is a good thing in my opinion.

What’s not good is that to get consumer attention there seems to be a mad rush to have low prices and often free content. In the short term this seems to benefit authors, game developers, readers and game players.

But it will not last.

Why Not?

I am asked occasionally why I do not start up my own indie game development firm. I have over ten years of experience on AAA titles as well as experience on smaller projects. I have art, design, sound and programming contacts.

But it is incredibly unlikely that I would ever start an indie firm up because I doubt, unless we lucked out and created a blockbuster, that it would ever be profitable. And that’s gambling; I don’t gamble.

For every major and moderate success with the Apple’s App store I suspect there are thousand of complete failures. And not all of these failures are crap titles, they are high quality goods that are not being noticed and cannot be noticed unless priced too low to be profitable.

To be blunt I doubt I would be able to pay my employees the money they would deserve.

Likewise I’m skeptical how many self publishing successes we are going to see in the realm of self publishing.

What’s Gonna Happen?

App developers and those self publishing for low prices are creating an expectation in the consumer that these prices reflect the effort put into creating the content. As the years pass this expectation will become even more pronounced.

For both books and games I suspect we will start seeing more copying and less originality. Both authors and game developers, in an attempt to be profitable at such low price points, will try to minimize risk. To do this they will copy tried and trued gameplay and narrative and flavor it just enough that it is not a blatant rip off.

If I were creating a title entirely on my own and with no expectation of making money I might risk being original. If I had a team depending on success to feed their families I’d copy an existing design and try to improve on it.

Of course nobody knows what will really happen but I think content creators of the future are going to have to find other ways to subsidize their product. This might mean advertising or blogging revenue or something more creative.

I’m considering carving my next novel in the walls of a cave and charging people admission to come and read it.

This leaves one more chapter to write and then the first draft of the book is complete. After that it is goes to editing.

I have also decided that the scripting section, which will be a significant part of the next chapter, will also be released as a stand-alone chapbook of sorts. More details on that later.

For those who are curious I’m now estimating this second volume to be close to 40 000 words (the first was about 22 000 words). Editing might trim this a bit.

In the section on deciding which type of game to make I suggested that the bias of the designer, the managers and other key stakeholders in the company, all interact to influence the game. What follows are my thoughts on how to recognize your own bias, how to use your understanding of expectations to build a better game, and how to control your own bias so it does not negatively impact the project.

Basically it comes down to knowing yourself.

So how do you go about doing this?

You can start by looking at the games you enjoy and the games you do not and build a list of features, ranking them by the degree they resonated with you. Then you take a look at games and features that you do not enjoy and start examining why. Can you objectively identify what you do not like about them? The key is to start peeling features away from the product and understanding why other players might enjoy them when you do not. Games are not like fruit: a rotten feature might be rotten only to you. To others it is still sweet and delicious.

This was an important lesson for me to learn because I had a tendency as a designer to neglect features I personally did not enjoy even if a significant portion of the players playing the games I helped build did enjoy them. This can be a difficult process.

Another method to analyze how design expectations influence you is to tackle a small-scale design product. The key is to design something as you normally would but to also remain self-aware of the design process as you undertake it. This can be more of a thought experiment than an actual game.
For example, here’s a hypothetical game system in which many of my own biases become evident. Let’s assume that I build a robot army and take over the world

(What? It’s possible!)

My Robot Minions

Imagine as dictator of the world that I want to implement a system to reward and penalize the governments of the world (hey, I promise to be a benevolent dictator… I’ll still let the world govern itself, more or less).

To do this I’ll be implementing a rewards and scoring system. Basically these will be like XBox achievements but rewarded to various governments for reaching particular milestones. Every country would have a score determined by their past accomplishments and would be encouraged (probably by financial incentives) to earn more achievements.

There would be a leaderboard so that top countries would have bragging rights over others. As well the first country to reach a milestone should receive a larger reward than others, to encourage competition (though a cleverer design might involve a pay-off that encouraged cooperation.)

Anyways, back to expectations! Here’s a sample list:

1. Moon Base + 25 points for establishing a permanent moon base.
2. Mars Landing + 75 points for landing a human on Mars. Bonus points if the human does not die immediately.
3. Space Elevator + 100 points for constructing a functional space elevator.

Immediately as I make this list my personal biases are evident. I’m a space-geek but I missed the whole “rush to the moon” experience. So in a brainstorming session my mind ignores a host of more practical achievements governments should aim towards and instead fixates on my own personal wants. If my interests were more geared towards economy my initial list would have likely been populated with earnings milestones or tax incentives or tax reduction. Others might target democratic reform, health care, or military downsizing. (And of course even as I list these secondary items, my personality is again reflected).

The point is that even when you are just brainstorming a list of achievements or rewards or powers in a game your life experience, what has and has not influenced you, is going to influence that list (as an aside this is why it is important to have a broad and diverse design team… it is likely that the core of the features you add will be enjoyed by many but diversity ensures that there’s something for an even wider group of player types).

In this example it would be important to consider a broad range of financial, scientific, environmental and cultural goals. And it would also be important to identify negative achievements, such as human rights violations, non-approved military actions or the election of leaders who are too tall.
Finally even the point values assigned to certain items will illuminate your expectations. For example I ranked the space elevator as four-times as important as a moon base. Do I really believe it is? Rankings are often very interesting, I’ve worked on numerous lists of game abilities with other designers and the closer in culture and life experience we were the more closely our lists resembled one other. That does not necessarily mean our lists were flawed in any way due to the similarities but it is an important point to remember.

To be truly objective in game design is difficult (and probably not desirable — you are building a game towards a specific type of audience, hopefully one that you relate to and one that will relate to you). The experiences that make you value one thing over another will likely have influenced many others. Within a shared culture we are likely to have shared many similar experiences.

But if you gain an understanding of your biased expectations and learn to strike out the mundane you might find your design skills improve and consequently the games you make become more enjoyable.

If you have not read the first book and are curious about a career in game design check it out on Amazon.

And if you want to be notified when the second book is complete I’ve added a form here.

The winning art for Volume 26 of the Writers & Illustrators of the Future contest, is now available for viewing at the Writers of the Future website.

One of the coolest aspects of winning the Writers of the Future contest was that each winning story received an illustration by one of the illustrators who had won the Illustrators of the Future contest.

This particular piece, by Rebecca Gleason, accompanied my story ‘Digital Rights’. I was thrilled during the art unveiling when I saw this and I think it fits the story quite well.

You can still purchase a copy of Writers of the Future 26.

This is the sale I mentioned at the end of last year. Thrilled to have placed my flash fiction sci-fi piece ‘Proof in the Pudding’ with this latest in the Uncle John’s series of books.

And you can already preorder the anthology from Amazon!.