Three Guys, a Girl, and a Groundling Shop

It's been some time. Certainly far too long. I have no excuse other than laziness...and I've been distracted. Mostly laziness. ...No wait, I've actually been really busy. Between instructing courses in Game Studies/Development and working towards cert for a AAA title, I've been working on Gnome. Yes. Gnome. Actually, it is now known as ...

Oh! Gnomes!

I must say, Seth has been a life saver for this game. He has done all sorts of crazy things. Most importantly, he interfaced Unity (iOS and Android) with Facebook so that players will be able to post their scores to their walls. When he and I were developing it and we kept IMing scores back and forth to each other, it quickly became apparent that having such a feature would be absolutely necessary. He also made Gnome work via Augmented Reality. It is so much fun to play. Absolutely amazing. Unfortunately, we (meaning he) could never get the FPS to an appropriate level. The best I heard was anywhere between 20-25 FPS, which just isn't good enough. And to top it all off, he performed several user tests. We could figure out what worked and what didn't. In fact, we removed 2 gnomes from the list because of it. They just weren't fun.

And Karl stepped up to the plate for the team. He was busy working on Art assets for Ghost (splitting a small team is not recommended), but when I asked him for a little help, he modeled and animated the Groundling and environment. And in Blender no less. Invaluable.

Last but certainly not least, Denise, a programmer, looked at the team and said "We have enough programmers. I'll be an artist!" Ok. So maybe they weren't exactly those words, but the intent was certainly the same. She created the GUI assets, modeled and animated the gnomes, and had many valuable insights into Unity. This game could not have been made without her.

Why am I using the past tense for Gnome? Because the game is almost done. We are putting on the final touches and squashing those final bugs. In hindsight, I feel we should have written about the process while in the thick of it. But I guess that's the glory of hindsight. So yeah...

A Kind of Transaction

Some time ago, I wrote about Transactional Analysis from the book Scripts People Live (I read it thinking that it would give me a set of archetypes that I could use to make characters more real - not exactly what the book is about.) Well, I enjoy the idea and started reading Games People Play; and then lightning struck my brain. In order for you to understand my thought, I will have to explain Transactional Analysis. Bear with me.

Certainly the most commonplace, is that every individual has an ego. That part of the psyche that experiences and reacts to the outside world. The notion of self. And at any time, the ego may experience and manifest itself through a mixture of 3 unique sets of behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. These 3 psyches are:

Parent ("exteropsyche"): a state in which people behave, feel, and think in response to an unconscious mimicking of how their parents (or other parental figures) acted, or how they interpreted their parent's actions. For example, a person may shout at someone out of frustration because they learned from an influential figure in childhood the lesson that this seemed to be a way of relating that worked.

Adult ("neopsyche"): a state of the ego which is most like a computer processing information and making predictions absent of major emotions that could affect its operation. Learning to strengthen the Adult is a goal of Transactional Analysis. While a person is in the Adult ego state, he/she is directed towards an objective appraisal of reality.

Child ("archaeopsyche"): a state in which people behave, feel and think similarly to how they did in childhood. For example, a person who receives a poor evaluation at work may respond by looking at the floor, and crying or pouting, as they used to when scolded as a child. Conversely, a person who receives a good evaluation may respond with a broad smile and a joyful gesture of thanks. The Child is the source of emotions, creation, recreation, spontaneity and intimacy[1].

Alright…are you still with me? Now when any social interaction (or transaction) occurs, there is the transaction stimulus - where on individual acknowledges the presence of another - and transactional response - the action that in someway is related to that stimulus. The simplest transactions are those where both individuals egos manifest themselves as Adults.

The agent, estimating from the data before him that a scalpel is now the instrument of choice, holds out his hand. The respondent appraises this gesture correctly, estimates the forces and distances involved, and places the handle of the scalpel exactly where the surgeon excepts it[2].

In order for communication to proceed smoothly, complementary. Example. But if a crossed transaction occurs, then communications is effectively broken off. Example.

Well done. Not painful at all. Now for my lightning.

Now the typically RPG dialog, there is the obvious Good, Neutral, and Evil (or in some of the lesser RPGs, Neutral, Evil, and "I like to eat babies" Super Evil) responses. However, depending on the flow of the dialog, the Good response is somewhat more evil than the Evil response, or vice versa. And sometimes there really isn't a response that makes any sense at all. This problem can easily be attributed to poor writing. Additionally, I would attribute this to an ignorance in how people actually interact. People are not transparently Good, Neutral, or Evil. Consider if all dialogs always had 3 responses: Parent, Adult, and Child. Depending on the initial stimulus, the Good response (or most ideal) may be the Parent or Adult or Child. It completely depends on how the player previously choose to navigate the dialog. This structure may create more natural flowing stimuli-responses.

In order to create an even more engaging experience, the option to socially respond the stimulus in one manner while psychologically responding to the stimulus in another. That is, an NPC may socially acts towards the player as an Adult ("This one is better, but you can't afford it.") and the player reacts to the NPC as an Adult ("That's the one I'll take!"). But the psychological undertones of this exchange is truly that of the NPC's Adult and the PC's Child ("Regardless of the finical consequences, I'll show that arrogant fellow I'm as good as any of his customers.").

So Many Gnomes!

So many gnomes! Let me say that one more time...So many gnomes! We've been working on Gnome for quite some time now. There are 2 interactions: Touch and Throw. And there are 3 gnomes for each interaction. Touch has Squish (touch and it dies), Explode (touch and it dies - and it kills all other gnomes around it), and Spawn (touch and it dies - and it spawns 2 gnomes at its position). Throw has Fling (throw and it dies when it collides with the ground), Target (throw and it dies when it collides with the Groundling), and Chemical (throw and it dies when it collides with another Chemical gnome - it kills all other gnomes around it).

If anybody has any suggestions for additional interactions or gnomes, please post a comment. I am interested in hearing what people have to say.

Also for each interaction, there is an interaction icon around their feet. - And it works out really well. Before these "affordance" icons were added, when a new gnomes was added into the mix (gnomes are added incrementally - starting with the basic gnomes and adding a new type after the player has killed some many gnomes), players were confused about how to interact with the new type. However, with the "affordance" icons, the game communicates appropriate interactions. To help with this training, players can interact with the Squish and Fling gnomes during the menu screen. This feature was, of course, an accident. But is certainly the best accident Gnome has experienced. I had a play-tester play with the gnomes in the menu for about 2 minutes before starting the game. - He did quite well.

We are working on getting animations from Blender into Unity (if anybody has a better clue than me, please let me know). We are working on being able to post the player's high scores to their Facebook page - this feature is so that friends can compare scores. You know, adding social play element to the game. Yep...That's it. So many gnomes!

If anybody has any ideas for the name of the game, again I want to hear them.

I Ain't Afraid of No Ghost

First, I thought that I would share some of the ghost images...


Secondly, things are not going nearly as well as I wanted them to be going. Not because I don't want them to be but by the fact that I was one of the few individuals that recently got laid off at High Voltage Software. In a moment of absolute panic, another project was started. It was conceived by my wife (she is much better at "cute" games than I am). But from that initial spark of an idea, the design is a quick and simple game for the iPhone. Here's hoping Gnome is successful.

There are 4 degrees of difficulty, the game shows the groundling. For EASY, the groundling is wearing a diaper. For NORMAL, the groundling appears as normal. For HARD, the groundling is wearing chest plate mail. For INSANE, the groundling is shown wearing...something...I don't exactly know. If anybody has any suggestions for it, then I would love to hear your ideas.

...With any luck, the next post will be a plea for people to go purchase Gnome (And I'll even explain the game).

p.s. I did find a contract position as a technical designer at Day 1 Studios. I'll be working on FEAR3. - I'm excited.

Back from the Black

I know it has been some time since my last post. In fact, it has been far too long. Whenever I have a spare moment from the busies of life and work on my side projects I see 2 options: I can either blog about what I am doing or I can get more of what I am doing done. Unfortunately, I typically see the latter as being the more productive action.

That said, Robot is still going strong. Justin is diligently working on the script and hopes to have it completed within the next couple weeks. I am attempting to channel all of the mothers of the world and guilt Trevor into sketching the concepts for the characters. I recruited 3D artist to build those fantastic sketches and turn them into a virtual reality. ...And as for me, well...I still need to get a computer that can handle the new Chat Mapper. It doesn't completely freeze my computer. No. I just can't open the application. But of course, and I just realized this, I don't need to open the Chat Mapper to update the exporter. Just to test it.

Ghost is going along quite well. I have yet another buddy of mine, Karl, working on 2D images of the various ghosts. It was crazy. I asked him to create a set of ghosts for the game. I gave him the their various powers and toughnesses (Yes, I play Magic: The Gathering) and the next day he came back with names for all of them and several drafts of the first ghost. It's hard not to love this guy's passion.

(I really do have a lot of really creative and talented friends.)

And with all my various trips back and forth between Chicago and Minneapolis in the past few months, I have had plenty of time to think. And because I am thinking without the specific implementation of either of these 2 games, I came up with yet another game. I call it Martyr. It's based off of a thought experiment in recalled from my "Moral Theory and Practice" course in college. Nearly ten years later, one would think that I would eventually forget those lectures.

Initial iterations would be a zero-player "game" that plays as such:

Initially, a set of characters are created. Each character is defined by a personality. A personality is defined by the Five Factor Model. Each of the five factors is either POSITIVE, NEUTRAL, or NEGATIVE. For each factor, one of its dimensions is randomly selected. This dimension has the same value as its factor. This defines the character's personality. Each dimension carries with it positive and negative weights toward 8 basic emotions. The greatest 2 values in the character's emotional dyad, such as "Love" or "Morbidness". This dyad determines what action the character will perform towards another character. If the dyad is composed of 2 opposing emotions, then cognitive dissonance occurs resulting in no action.

Each character has 3 POSITIVE, NEUTRAL, or NEGATIVE "feelings" toward each character (including himself). This relationship is defined using the Triangular Theory of Love. Now whenever a character acts upon by another character, he has the possibility of influencing the target character's emotional dyad. The intensity and longevity is determined by the target character's relationship toward the acting character. For example, if Character A has an emotional dyad is "Love" and Character B has a consummate love relation toward A, then B's JOY and TRUST values increase permanently and SADNESS and DISGUST values decrease. However, if B were to have a consummate hate relation toward A, the opposite would occur. If B were to have a NEUTRAL commitment toward A, then the influence would last for 1 round. If B were to have a NEGATIVE commitment toward A, then the influence would last for 1 turn.

Each basic emotion has an opposite and resulting emotion. JOY results in more JOY. However, SURPRISE results in ANTICIPATION. This allows for "Dominate" personalities to create "Submissive" personalities, and "Curious" personalities to create "Fatalistic" personalities.

This would be the simulation. The "game" portion returns to the Trolley Problem and also why I call it Martyr. There would be X number of dying characters in play. The player would have Y amount of health (Y is less than X). The player can walk up to the various characters and few their personalities and relationships. Now the player can heal a character and return him to life. Doing so, causes the player to lose 1 point of life. Once the player has expended all of his life, he dies and the simulation occurs for a set number of rounds.

While this "game" may appear evil, we (you and me) as individuals do this sort of thing everyday of our lives. We chose to interact and influence certain people, while ignoring others. This project just brings that unpleasant reality to surface. It begs the question, or at least I hope it does: "How do you spend your life?"

Alright. Back to work on either Robot or Ghost.

Note: There is a certain emotional dyad that will heal other characters. And of course, there is also a dyad that will kill others.