GAMELAB

I recently attended to the Gamelab, a gathering of videogame developers in Gijón, a northern spanish city. It's an annual convention, and most relevant professionals of the spanish videogame industry were there. You can check their website here (unfortunately only in spanish).

There is no a proper congress of videogame makers for the spanish industry. In other countries the GDC takes care of those gatherings, but for lot of reasons the local GDC chapters in Spain have proved to be unable to keep a continuous activity. I was one of the professionals trying to activate the Madrid chapter. We organized a couple of events, but eventually there were more people interested in attending than in organizing it. To be honest we were probably too ambitious, and it was too time-consuming. As far as I know Dani Sánchez Crespo is in charge of the Barcelona chapter, but he has never organized not even one meeting.

With this situation, I'm quite happy that Gamelab has managed to put together so many relevant professionals of the spanish industry. Even the weakest keynotes were interesting since they offer a view of the current state of the spanish industry. I really enjoyed Enric's since it was full of real-life experiences about how to sell a next-gen project to a publisher. I also had the chance the see some in-game footage of The Lord of the Creatures, Gonzo's own Duke Nukem Forever (who knows, maybe they'll eventually publish it. I was always eskeptic about that). ZedCity was also presented. It intends to be a casual World of Warcraft, but so far it looks more like a Walking simulator. I sincerely hope Juan Tamargo will find the way to make it more interesting, I'm sure they will. Anyway, here you can find some pictures that I made of the conferences.

I'm one of those optimistics thinking that just talking and sharing experiences is good for the industry. Talking specifically about Spain, what's good for one company is generally good for all the others, so in a way we're all a bunch of guys trying to build an industry without any government support. Maybe we'll make it. I hope we will.

ACCURATE REVIEWS

Lately I've read lots of game reviews recommending 'this game is a 10', 'you really need to buy it', 'it's perfect!'.

I'm not going to get into the fact that most of those reviews, under my humble point of view, are too hype-influenced to be considered accurate. Yes, I'm thinking about Halo 3, Metal Gear Solid 4 or GTA 4. Let's keep that aside.

What I'm pointing out is this: The videogame critics apparently don't pay much attention to the fact that gamers are different, and there are several genres to prove it. You would not recommend a horror flick to a romantic-comedy-fan, would you? Ok, maybe that horror movie is simply great, and a '10' in its genre, but it will definitively fall down in the rank when watched by someone who loves other type of movies.

Well, games are the same. Would you say 'you have to buy this shooter game' to a puzzle gamer? I don't care if it's the perfect shooter. It would be a bad recommendation, a waste of money and another step back for videogames to be the main leisure choice for the XXI society.

So I'd recommend videogame journalists to be more precise in their articles, and when they suggest potential buyers to acquire a game, clearly state the game's genre. Somehow I feel videogame press still need to grow old to become what it's supposed to be: An accurate information source for gamers so they can select the game they'll really enjoy.

BIOSHOCK (XBOX 360)

Undoubtely one of last year's most important games, essentially Bioshock is a console FPS, but there are also lots of RPG elements.

The story: Late 50s. Your plane crashes right at the entrance of a secret underwater city in the middle of the Atlantic. It was built by a group of visionaries after the second world war, and it was populated by scientifics and artists trying to build a better world. Their experiments on genetic engineering eventually turned the paradise into hell. You're supposed to be helping one of the survivors to rescue his family, but things are not always as they seem to be...

I personally bought it attracted by the good reviews and its original setting: That secret city below water was misterious enough to make me wish to explore its secrets. And god knows there are many of them.


Ok, about game mechanics:

My personal opinion is that there are just too many of them. And I really mean A LOT. I've always been in favor of combining one core mechanic with 2-3 supporting mechanics (which is too much for many designers) but Bioshock simply exceeded my expectations.

The basic mechanic is the shooting trade-off (with no aiming helps as far as I could see), but you unlock certain genetic improvements allowing alternative gameplay, such as freezing enemies, setting them on fire, sneaking, hacking turrets and security devices, use the environment electrocuting water areas, use 'the force' to attract objects to be thrown or as shields...

Want more mechanics? There are more. You can also loot objects from bodies and crates to craft ammo and other elements. There are weapon upgrades to choose from, genetic upgrades to adapt the combat style to yours. You can take pictures of the enemies to increase your combat skills against each one. There is a basic (and eventually repetitive) puzzle game to simulate hacking, and vendors to get ammo and medikits (by the way, the health system is really hardcore).

And let's talk about the weapons. There are not a lot (6), but each one has 3 different types of ammo to be used against different enemies which in essence makes 18 weapons. I noticed it's difficult to select the proper one, since you don't have much time to think when you're attacked.

And there is also a huge exploration aspect: Players are required to spend time searching all desks and boxes if they want to have enough ammo at their disposal. I personally think it was too much. It's just not fun to be searching every prop in the game. Some of them are highlighted so you can see them from a distance, but most of them are inside desks and takes too much time to collect them. It was boring.

Players are required to manage several parameters: Player's health, player's mana (called EVE, allows to use those genetic superpowers), ammo, ADAM (the currency for genetic enhancements), crafteable elements and money. Am I the only one that thinks it's a little too much?

Ok, yes, much of the mechanics are optional. You don't really need to take pictures, snipe or even use genetic enhancements much of the time. But somehow I have the feeling that I'm not playing in the proper way if I don't use them all. Also, it had to be really painful to tweak all those mechanics properly. I know, that same studio created System Shock, and since both games share most of the design, they've already been there. But anyway I think they could have done a great game anyway without that many. Made me feel lost often.


Now for the level design:

I found it appropriate. The bulk of the game is based on objectives like 'Go to that unexplored area'. Once you're spotted enemies never stop chasing you, so basically you're forced to kill everything on sight. But it's fine, you've got lots of killing options to choose from, so combat was always challenging enough combined with the scenarios.

Small twists in the levels were common, making each scenario somehow unique: There is a escort mission, collecting objectives or a level in which all your genetic enhancements are taken away (for some reason there was not much ammo in that level, and it was really painful).


Story:

I remember one of my bosses in my previous company saying that unique settings cannot create a good game by itself. I think he was wrong, and Bioshock proves it. None of the game mechanics are really that original. The underwater city and the stories within are.

The most remarkable element of this game story is how the plot is embedded into the game environments. Players are provided with all information required for the missions by radio, but you can see the inner stories of the people who populated Rapture through the signs they left in the rooms, their works... it's a little like the human traces found in hidden places in Portal.

In order to provide some background stories you can collect audio recordings hidden in the scenarios. It makes sense since there are no 'normal' people populating the place, just enemies. I'm not particularly hot about these audio recordings, though. Most of them don't add much to the story, and they're often gameplay intrusive.

The genetic superpowers are (for my opinion) a little too unrealistic for the story. Let's see: One allows you to throw electric discharges, another one shoots fire bolts. Telekinesis works as 'the force' (attracting and repelling objects), another one allows you to turn enemies into ice statues for a short time, throw bees against enemies (I'm serious), create cyclons... I just don't buy it. Ok, once you get into the story (and particularly the gameplay) you live with it, but I keep thinking the story doesn't support that degree of magic.

To me, the best thing of the story is how it makes you feel you're really inside it. Music is excellent (old tunes from the late 40s), and sound effects are everywhere to give you the chills. Final boss encounters are carefully prepared by the storytelling, so you know the insane experiments and abuses they lead against innocent people.

One of the most remarkable features of the game is an ethical choice you're given: Little girls (named little sisters) wander around the scenarios protected by one of the toughest enemies, the so-called Big daddies. If you manage to kill these, you can either save or gather (kill) the little ones. The end of the game depends of that choice. I personally saved them all, so I gained access to the 'good guy' ending. The 'bad guy ending' is not bad either, you can finish the game with both of them.


Conclussion:

I'd give it a 7.5. Bioshock is one of those games that I like because they clearly offer more content than I expected for my money. Despite some frustrating moments and too much time spent in the RPG mechanics, I had fun playing it and the storytelling is really compelling. I strongly recommend to any RPG gamer to try it, and particularly anyone interested in how games can tell good stories. This one does.

Design Studies in Spain

I have a subscription to the Edge Magazine (english edition). There are multiple adds there of British Universities inviting people to study game design. Also design conferences, meetings for designers, design books in english...

For some reason there are not much studies for videogame designers in Spain. It was recently published in the media that videogames sold last year more than cinema and music TOGETHER in Spain. Considering that, I'm stunned for the fact that there are just a couple of masters to train people for the spanish videogame industry.

Ok, there is one perfectly valid reason: The spanish videogame industry is reduced. Just a bunch of companies trying to survive. No point of investing money training people. Not much people know about it. Today Spain is a consumer for foreign products. I think this is changing, but not fast enough.

As far as I know there are 2 masters trying to provide a basic knowledge to people (one in Madrid, another one in Barcelona), and both focus in programming. Seems like there are some lectures about pure design, but that's it.

I personally think that having professional experience lets you know about the real life of videogame development, but having some studies gives you a basic layer of knowledge that eventually may set the difference. I lack of that. I’ve tried to cover that fault reading books, but it will never be the same.

Right now I’m really interested in sharing the little I know with the future professionals. I am probably not the most experienced or skilled designer in Spain, but somehow I feel the need to contribute to the training of future professionals...

BOOK REVIEW: SIX THINKING HATS (Edward de Bono, 1985)

Have you ever been into a meeting with other people trying to find a solution for a problem, spending hours talking and ending up with no result? Yeah, me too. Lots of times. The basic premise of Edward de Bono's 'Six Thinking Hats' is to provide you with a method to avoid that situation.

The main problem in most meetings is how to deal with the different personalities of the people involved. There is some creative but not-so-well organized people, people who only criticize, others who just want plain data and nothing else... If you find a group who knows how to work together is great, but that rarely happen.

So de Bono offers a way to organize people's thinking to optimize the result. The system works as follows: The author has isolated the different personalities which could be involved in a decision-making process, and assign each one of them with a colored hat:

- White Hat: Facts and figures
- Red Hat: Emotions and feelings
- Black Hat: Problems
- Yellow Hat: Positivism
- Green Hat: Creativeness
- Blue Hat: Organization

Then all people involved in finding the solution need to use each different hat when they're required. It's like a role-playing game, but with a professional objective. Each person will probably be particularly skilled in one or two of the different hats, but the final result should be a complete overview of the problem, the solutions and which is the best one.

Well, that's what de Bono says. However, my personal impression about this issue is not as optimistic as the author's. Seems like all those people using hats need to have a unique approach to the problem: They should all be in the same level (or at least be allowed to talk freely to people of a higher rank), they should all be really willing to surrender their own personal solutions to another one, be open to criticism and eventually be really looking for the best solution.

My personal experience is quite different: The main motivation is not to find the best solution, since bosses always use their hyerarchies to make their own proposals win over the others. Few bosses that I know have really managed to create an atmosphere where anyone can talk freely. The main motivation of the people in the meetings is generally to make their proposals triumph over the others, or simply accept the boss solution in a smart way trying to get as much credit as possible. In most situations, when they fail to make their ideas succeed they talk with the boss alone, convince him and make his approach be the winner. And no, I don't think this only happen in Spain. I've worked with people from lots of countries and it happens all the time.

If someday de Bono's idealistic system is really put to work I'll be the first to adopt it. Sadly, my experience tells me that the decision-making process is based on 'company politics'. De Bono's method seems interesting for those social areas were there can really be a 'best solution' (engineering, for instance) but not for those areas where is not that easy to decide if a solution is the best or not. Any artistic-related activity will not allow that easily. Videogame design is one of them. However, I think the book is extremely interesting because of its isolation of personalities. Once you spot a 'black hat' person (only points out the problems, never provide a solution) it's easier to deal with him, asking them to use 'another hat'.

GAMES DEVELOPER CONFERENCE 2008

I had never attended to any previous GDC before, and I didn't have the intention to do so this year. I had taken a look at the speakers and it didn't look particularly interesting. However, my company manager told a group of employees (including me) that they'll pay us the trip, the hotel and the GDC registration. As the Godfather would say, it was an offer I couldn't refuse.

The convention took place in San Francisco's Moscone center. Nice place in the city downtown. For those who never attended, the convention features dozens of different conferences, most of them at the same time. So you really need to schedule your attendance heavily in order to be in those you really want to be. As I said, I didn't feel this year's conferences were extremely interesting but anyway there are always some subjects that could be useful for your work.

More than that, we had a problem with the schedule. It was also our intention to meet with our publisher, and so we had a couple of conference-free days for that. However, they put no effort in setting the meetings in those days. So we had to meet them during the sessions. I was attending meetings with my mobile on, and when needed I had to run away to go join the others. Not too professional from Universal's side but ey, they pay our salaries.

My general feeling about the content of the (few) design sessions I could attend was that there were too many 'pajas mentales' (mental masturbations) and few useful day-by-day applicable solutions for designers. Most of the speakers seemed to be more interested in show how cool they were, how many 5-syllabled words they could put in the same sentence, and talk about 'what is design?', 'Are videogames art?' and all that academic shit, more than sharing with us the problems they have and how they solved them.

I would have loved to have the time to talk with people. I'm sure that's the real way to make the conference useful for you but, as I said, we didn't have the time to be at the conference all the time we should have. Anyway, I bought some interesting design books, had a nice experience, had dinner with other spaniards (see the pictures here) and had the chance to see San Francisco again, which is one of my favourite cities.

Not bad in any sense, I think.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: PHANTOM HOURGLASS (NDS)

Before joining the videogame industry I worked in the tv for some years. During that time I didn’t pay much attention to games in general, and consoles in particular. So I missed the golden years of Nintendo’s consoles, Playstation 1 and part of Playstation 2.

As a consequence, I didn’t experience some classic games of that era, including all Zelda games. I was intrigued by the complete devotion of its followers, and since Ocarina of Time ranked as the best game of all times in some lists, I tried to play it in my PC using an emulator. It was a bad experience, graphics were clearly out-of-date, the action took too much time to start, some mechanics seemed to be ridiculous (such as cutting grass to get rupees) and I got lost almost at the start.

As a result, I was quite skeptic about that series. Minish Cup was not a bad thing to play, but Gameboy’s graphics were so cheesy that I couldn’t give much credit to the game. However, since so much people that I respected were so devoted to that Link guy, I decided to give it another try buying Wii’s Twilight princes. My opinion about the series clearly improved, but so far I’m still unable to finish it for a number of reasons.

Anyway, in 2006’s E3 I played a small demo of the multiplayer mod of Phantom Hourglass, and I like both the graphic style and the camera. Considering my current devotion for portable consoles, I decided that game will be my Zelda, and eventually it was. Here are my impressions of the first Zelda game I ever finished:

Zelda games are apparently unique in its genre. There are not much competitors. It’s a mix of basic fighting, RPG, exploration and puzzles, and we could say the final result is pure adventure. The extension of the game is huge, there are usually lots and lots of areas to explore, puzzles to solve and enemies to fight.

Phantom Hourglass is the first Zelda for DS. It takes its graphic style from the not-so-well-sold The Windwaker (Gamecube), and that was a wise decision. It perfectly fits with the type of DS gamers, and I think can attract other players as well.

The game uses all the conventions of the epic tales: Eden-like paradise invaded by evil forces, an heroic main character using a mighty sword, magical creatures, unexplored universe filled with all types of dangers...

The plotline appears to be the same in all Zelda games: A young blonde elf-like fellow lives happily in a small town. For some reason evil magic forces take control of his world, and an old man reveals the big secret: He’s that mythical hero of past times, Link!. Not a big surprise for the player, though, all Links look more or less similar. In the very moment you begin playing you know you’re going to be discovered as that ancient hero, and the main character’s surprise expression when he realizes who he is looks almost stupid for your eyes.

The tactile screen is wisely used, particularly applied to all the player actions. It’s basically Diablo style (if you click on the field, the character goes there. If you click over an enemy, the character attacks). They’re easy to remember and most of them are consistent with your mental mapping for that action. Only rolling (present in other Zelda games) is not properly integrated into the game.

One of my bosses at Pyro used to say ‘Less is more’. He was one of those Sony-let’s-make-it-casual guys that insisted in having just one cool game mechanic and build the game completely out of it. Zelda is clearly in the other side. It has lots and lots of different mechanics. I know, this game is quite unique, but thank god it exists. Otherwise the gaming world will be based only on Singstars and so on.

Another remarkable mechanic of the Zelda series is its role element. Instead of allowing players to set their characters using indirect RPG options (stamina, intellect, slot-based inventory...) that require the player to micro-manage their characters in order to do special things, or leveling abilities until they’re really powerful, players get new equipment with special usages, each one allowing a unique and cool use (generally associated to puzzle solving).

If there is a minor aspect that I dislike from Zelda puzzles is the fact that there is only one way to solve them. Sometimes you feel there is another possible choice (in fact it makes more sense) but since the puzzles was conceived to use other objects/equipment you’re stuck wondering why the game doesn’t make sense. Or simply you don’t understand what you’re supposed to do. I think all puzzle games should have their own walkthrough inside the game (maybe you lose rupees or special content if you use it too much). I just don’t see the point of making one of your customers leave the game unfinished if he paid for all of it.

Frankly I got stuck 2-3 times. When internet didn’t exist that meant the game was over for me. Thanks to the net, I just took a look at the walkthroughs, found the way to solve the problem and keep having fun.

I didn’t like AT ALL the use they made of the Temple of the ocean king. You’re forced to play it up to 5 times (if I remeber correctly), going through all its dungeons over and over, and play it against a timer. Yes, new tools make the journey easier. Yes, along with the story you get more time to play with and yes, at some point you get a teleport portal that saves you some dungeons. But anyway it’s boring. The only justification to do so is to artificially enlarge the game’s experience.

Conclusion: I’d give it an 8. It was a real challenge to bring Zelda series to DS, and they excelled. Great game, nice experience and not that long (I think it took me like 15 hours all together). I really felt into the game universe and I even tried to solve some optional missions (fishing, treasures). Since it’s partially a puzzle game, I got stuck and had to check internet walkthroughs to keep going, but most of the time I managed to solve problems by myself. Highly recommendable for DS players, adventure lovers and by all means anyone who likes Zelda series.