As I mentioned in my first blog post, I would like to address the problem of losing data while working on a game. I know, I know, EVERYONE who works on games or other software creation KNOWS this already. My dilemma is WHEN you save! I save all the time, but always seem I get an error or a crash of some kind when I’m saving something I’ve spent a particularly large chunk of my life completing.

I have tried to find the reason this happens for more than 2 years now, and the only answer I keep coming up with is that whatever I took so long to create is important to know HOW to create, so God is forcing me to REALLY learn it! Yeah, kinda weak, but it tends to keep me from tossing my expensive laptop across the room. Seriously, though, I’ve found that when I did have to go back and rebuild what I’d labored so long over, I have found errors that would have been very difficult to find and fix outside of the beta-testing process, or a better way of doing the whole process.

What’s strange is that I don’t always look on the bright side of life. Maybe having the power to destroy a laptop and all it contains in my hands makes me cautious!? Anyway, I’ve yet to figure out the PERFECT time to save my work, beyond what I’ve done at the end of a session of manipulating enemy AI or painstakingly recreating a new piece of military equipment. The save process can be excruciatingly time consuming as well when you work with a program that can, due to circumstances which don’t reveal themselves, also CORRUPT the data you have already saved! AAAAAAAARRRRRRRGH!

This has happened to me 4 times over the last 2 years, and each time I figured I had learned my lesson and would avoid any problems in the future. Each time I got cocky with my skills, God slaps me back into place. It’s hard to describe what it’s like when you get into a game-designing groove (my phrase, but feel free to use it!) and nothing can stop you! Your AI is working perfectly and all of your vehicles are performing as designed, and you just have to plot a route for the final enemy air strike and “POOF”, it’s all gone! Some of you know exactly what it’s like. These are the times when prayer, even for the anti-Christ, seems appropriate!

Even beyond these things are the times when you ARE saving often and in numerous places, and there is a power surge or your CPU decides it’s had enough. We are at the mercy of electrons, as it were.

So, the whole point of this blog is to let you know that first, you aren’t alone if you’ve suffered through something similar, and second, when you have taken all of the precautions to avoid losing your hard work, sometimes you should just look at it as the journey being the reward and the process is what’s important…

…or something like that.

I suppose an introduction is in order, since this is my first post. My name is Scott Lantz, (though I often am seen using the moniker “Hiro_Antagonist”,) and I am the main designer/developer/producer guy at Tiny Hero Game Studios. As you may have heard, Shrapnel recently announced that it will be publishing our first game, Land of Legends. We’re very proud to be partnering with Shrapnel for this title, but the mix may seem a bit unintuitive on the surface. After all, Shrapnel typically publishes war games or ‘hard-core’ strategy. And Land of Legends is a self-professed ‘casual strategy’ game with cartoonish graphics. Will Shrapnel’s audience have any interest in Land of Legends?

My answer, of course, is a resounding “Yes!” As it turns out, Shrapnel and Land of Legends aren’t as contradictory as they might seem on the surface. Even though Land of Legends is a ‘casual strategy’ game, that doesn’t mean it’s simplistic or shallow. Though I guess the best way to clear that up is to explain what ‘casual strategy’ actually means, and to compare that to better-known ‘hard-core strategy’ elements.

‘Hard-core strategy’ games usually feature very long games (many hours or days), complex rules that take many hours to fully learn, and so much content that any given player can rarely be aware of every factor in play. Often times, the rules are so complicated and numerous that players don’t even know them all.

‘Casual strategy’ games have a number of elements which are fundamentally different from ‘hard-core strategy’ games, though they can be equally deep and challenging. They tend to be simple to learn, and have a manageable amount of rules and elements. They tend to play more quickly, and they tend to appeal to more people.

So which is better? Casual strategy or hard-core? Well, the answer depends largely on your personal taste, but I believe that most gamers would enjoy both, at different times and for different reasons.

For example, the complexity of hard-core games is often perceived as a blessing — after all, a game with that much content and complexity offers seemingly endless opportunity for exploring the game. However, such complexity also comes with costs: if a game is too big for a player to know all of the rules and elements in play, how can a player make properly educated decisions? And if the game rewards players that have simply played (or studied) the game more than other players, then the game starts being less about skill and dynamic problem solving, and more about memorization and study. I’m a big believer in the idea that game should reward the *best* player, not just the player with the most experience playing it.

Also, while hard-core games tend to be longer and give more of an epic feel to each game, this can really impact a player’s ability to just sit down and have a complete and satisfying game experience in a short period of time. When games are so long, they tend be started far more often than finished. It can also be a pain to get a multi-player game going, since all players have to make huge time commitments before they even start, and if any given player has to leave for whatever reason, that can ruin the game for everyone. The more players involved and time required, the harder it is for everyone to be available and willing to play at the same time. With casual strategy games, playing a game isn’t a hugely complicated affair. And if the game offers a centralized matchmaking lobby (like Land of Legends does), it’s very easy to find opponents to play a quick game.

Another issue with hard-core games is that they tend to only attract a hard-core audience. More mainstream gamers tend to be alienated and mystified by giant, complex games. This can be a problem when you’re trying to get your friends or family excited about a game, so that you can all enjoy it together. But casual strategy games are typically designed from the ground up to be accessible and appealing to a much wider audience, just like most card or board games. (Card and board games are, after all, casual turn-based strategy games!)

And then there’s the myth that hard-core games are always capable of deeper strategy than casual games. But in reality, I’ve found that players usually just end up focusing on micromanagement issues, or the maps are so big that the player is functionally playing many smaller games at once. Sure, casual games *can* be more shallow (checkers or tic-tac-toe for instance), but they certainly don’t have to be. As anyone that’s played Chess or Advance Wars or Slay or Go can attest, simple rules don’t always mean simple strategies. A properly designed casual strategy game should be just as impossible to master as a hard-core game, and should always allow for the more clever and adept player to get the upper hand.

Don’t get me wrong — I love hard-core strategy games like Dominions II and Space Empires IV. *LOVE THEM* (In fact, those are the games that first introduced me to Shrapnel.) But I think that many gamers (and developers) have gotten bogged down in the philosophy that bigger is always better, and I’ve started leaning the other way. I don’t always have 2 days to play a single instance of a game. I want to play something fast, fun, and furious. I want my strategy lean and mean, with all the fat trimmed off.

Land of Legends is my answer.

We have made a lot of new friends recently, but a lot of those folks don’t really know about our companies history or philosophy. I would like to point some folks to the following webpage:

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/about.htm

To continue to move towards this goal I thought I would post some articles from an old feature we used to post regularly on the website. This is the first, in a multi blog series, that will highlight some of the ramblings err thoughts from our intrepid leader Tim Brooks. I will continue to post these as long as Sarge will let me .

Enjoy:

Publishers Say the Darndest Things

Over the last seven years, I have been in literally hundreds of conversations with upper management folks (suits) in the Game Publishing Industry… errr… I mean the Multi-Media Entertainment Industry. I have been keeping records of the most interesting quotes that have come out of these meetings. Now, I didn’t always write these quotes down. Early on I just thought I had ran into a really ignorant person, it was only later that I realized that most of the suits in this industry are all alike. That’s when I started writing down what was said. So, although not all of the following quotes are verbatim, the grand majority of them are, and the ones that aren’t are pretty darned close. By the way, these are in no particular order, and names are withheld to protect the truly stupid.

“We don’t use game designers…” - Producer for major developer.

“Let’s see, we are giving you one more month to finish up those changes. Could you also make it so that we can see the backs of the buildings. You know, rotate the view.” - Producer for major publisher, asking us to take a 2D engine and turn it into a 3D engine in one month.

“We only hire game designers with no experience, so that we can train them.” – Producer. When I asked who trained them, he said, “They just learn by trial and error.”

“We don’t do your type of game. We try to stay away from accuracy.” – VP of Development of wargames publisher.

“You know what would make this fun. You should make it like Command & Conquer, or like Quake.” - Vice President of large publishing house in a conversation about the sequel to 101: The Airborne Invasion of Normandy.

“Why don’t you do a game about D-Day. Now that would sell. Nobody wants to play a game about Normandy.” – Producer for major publisher after reading the Design Document for 101: The Airborne Invasion of Normandy.

“They are two different things, this industry isn’t about games.” – Producer, answering my question as to why they don’t hire designers from the board game industry.

“I played that Doom game once.” – Producer for large publisher when I asked him what games he’s played in the last month.

“I’m way too busy to play games. I have to make sure that our developers turn out quality products.” - Another Producer, when I asked him how many game’s he’s played in the last month.

“You could be a good wargame designer if you just weren’t so interested in realism.” - In an employment interview with a major game developer.

“I was in the construction industry.” – New Producer, when I asked him what he did before he got his current job.

“It’s not supposed to end.” – Developer, when I asked him how to win the game they were showing me.

“Multi-media.” - Producer’s answer to my question “What type of games are you looking for?”

“You’re asking too much. We only pay $10,000 - $15,000 for our games.” – Producer who approached me about doing a game for his major wargame publishing company. He wanted to know how much we would charge them to design and develop the product. Needless to say, it was a lot more than $15,000.

“Turn-based games are dead.” - Producer with company whose largest hit at that time was a well-known turn-based game. I still wonder if he was aware that his company’s leading product was a turn-based game, then in the top-ten in sales. I didn’t have the courage to ask, I was afraid of what he might say.

All the above individuals still work in this industry, except one. And you wonder where all the really great games have gone…

I saw an interesting thing over at Ogre Cave today that got me thinking. They’re reporting a rumor that uberonline store Amazon has just bought a print-on-demand outfit, and being a gaming site were thinking out loud of the impact it would have on the world of gaming. Is Amazon poised to offer cheap game materials to the masses? Is this the end of your friendly neighborhood gamestore?

Of course not. Just as RPGNow and Drivethrough RPG haven’t through selling PDFs even Amazon won’t make much of a dent with their print-on-demand (POD) services. POD, while initially hailed as the Next Great Thing(tm) during the dot-com nineties, hasn’t exactly set the world on fire. Just like Steam, the idea isn’t altogether bad, but the reality leaves a taste of ashes in the mouth. Material quality can vary, expectations are often higher than what they should be, and overall there are simply better alternatives.

There’s also a bigger monkey on the back of POD than material quality though, and that’s quality in general. Tell me which statement will gather more appreciation from an audience…

(A) “Why yes, I’ve just had my novel published through Doubleday. You can find it in the new fiction section of your local Barnes and Noble as a hardback.”

(B) “I’ve just had my first novel published. It’s a print-on-demand book, let me send you the URL so you can order it. I was going to take it to a publisher but realized that it was such a work of genius that the staggeringly incompetent idiots who run those publishing houses would have no clue as to my greatness.”

Yeah, that’s right, B is obviously the one that will get you all the hot chicks.

Let’s face it, POD just reeks of self-importance, of questionable material, and utter crappiness. Yes, I’m sure there are many golden nuggets out there but you have to search through a lot of nuggets chock full of corn (if ya know what I mean) to find them.

Unfortunately in the age of reality television, of 24 hour news, of the Internet everyone seems to think that what they have to say/write/design/etc is so freakin’ awe-inspiring that they have to get it to the masses, and if the masses don’t appreciate it that just means the mob is a fickle creature. Why, sorta like this blog I’m writing.

While we live in an age that allows ideas to be shared around the world this doesn’t mean that they should. And this is where publishers come in.

A publisher is a gatekeeper. A publisher sifts through all the material coming in, picks what to publish based on their criteria, and decides what is better left untouched. Yes, a publisher can only publish so much so there are still plenty of good ideas that go unpublished. Yes, a publisher (especially in the world of gaming) can stumble with some of their releases. What ultimately helps the consumer though is the knowledge that hey, even if you don’t end up liking the product at least you are safe in knowing that there were other people who oversaw it. They proofed it, played it, listened to it, edited it, whatever. It was touched by human hands, thought about by human minds, discussed by human voices.

If Joe Q. Smith put up a game for your downloading pleasure on his site that he created you may find it’s a work of unsurpassed joy or it could be a spyware infested buggy mess. You don’t know Joe Q. Smith. You have no reason to trust Joe Q. Smith. He could have slapped it together in a couple of hours and made it available. No playtesting may have occurred, no hardware compatability. You’re in a position of being a blind man trying to cross a minefield.

But if newcomer Joe Q. Smith took that same game and had it published by Game Publisher A-Z, wouldn’t that make a difference? Here’s someone who is willing to stand behind Joe Q. Smith. And maybe you already know that Game Publisher A-Z comes out with killer games so the trust is already there. Why even wait for the reviews?

So in the end as more and more self-publishing occurs the need for publishers will become more evident than ever before, otherwise the consumer will simply drown in a sea of bad choices.

-Scott

Buy me a trip to the moon
So I can laugh at my mistakes
I can see the end from here
From this perspective it looks kind of silly
Satellites and astronauts
Tell me there are greater things ahead

–”Satellites And Astronauts”, In Flames

So, are you familiar with the Frag Dolls? They’re a Ubisoft marketing gimmick to promote their games, specifically in multiplayer environments like LAN tournies. While I can only assume that they have, as the kids say today, skillz, having not witnessed them in action I can only suppose. What I don’t have to assume though is the fact that regardless of the fact that they may actually be good at what they promote, Ubisoft’s choices were made not solely on these skillz, but the cheesecake factor, right? They are a bunch of young, attractive chicks after all.

There is of course nothing inherently wrong with that. Sex sells, and it definitely sells to gamers. There’s a reason why most chicks in games would probably have lower back problems in real life, and why for some reason in a fantasy world the male fighters dress in full plate while a g-string and pasties counts as heavy armor for the women. Gamers are predominantly male, are often preoccupied with interests that those who don’t play games don’t get into (aka the nerd factor), and enjoy looking at the female form. (And for the blog nazis, look, I’m just making generalities so (a) don’t get too upset over my descriptions and (b) go to DragonCon and tell me how off I really am).

Anyhow, this got me thinking. I imagine that Ubisoft is able to get pretty good mileage out of the Frag Dolls, and some great promotion for their games. Who wouldn’t want to play hot oil strip Ghost Recon with them? (That is what they do, right? If not don’t destroy the moment with the truth…) Heck, they get into Playboy or something and boom, Ubisoft gets some more free advertising. Yeah, Ubisoft has a pretty good deal going on.

So back to the thinking part. Well, if Ubisoft can do it why can’t others? Why, couldn’t we do a call out for all the luscious wargamer hotties out there? Couldn’t we form the Shrapnel Bootylicious Stormtrooper Squad? Sex up a few of our titles?

And therein lies a problem. Even if I was being serious would we be able to find a single chick out there who wargamed? She wouldn’t even have to be a 9 or 10, a 6 or 7 would do…just as long as she actually wargamed. Would there be a snowball’s chance in Hell of finding our very own she-wolf, much less a pack of them?

If you’ve been paying attention to our blogs (collect’em all!) you may recall that in my reminiscing over Team Yankee I mentioned playing with chicks, and so right now you may be thinking that obviously there’s not a problem with women wargamers, I already proved that. Unfortunately I wish that was true. The difference being that while yes, I have been able to get women to play wargames, it wasn’t exactly like they owned their very own copy of Tac Air or Gulf Strike. It would be akin to guys and chick flicks. Sure, we can say we’ve seen chick flicks but that’s only because we were dragged to them by a chick. We don’t elect to see them on our own. Likewise, while it’s possible to get a gal to play a war or strategy game I’ve never encountered any, despite Avalanche Press’ insistence on using both genders in their manuals, who owned any wargames.

But why? It can’t be the violence factor. While yes, wargames are all about the killing and wholesale destruction of your opponent the irony is the fact that they are the most bloodless games on the market, whether they’re computer or board based. In real life a battle may end with shattered corpses and a sea of blood, but in a game a die is rolled and a counter removed. So it can’t be the violence factor.

Is it the military theme? I’ve never seen women play with toy soldiers after all, yet they play with dolls. But women are increasingly a presence in the military, and in some cases like the IDF, serve quite active roles. So it can’t be the military theme.

Wargames, strategy games, conflict sims, whatever label you want to lump them under, are boil down to mental exercises, of tactical decision making and long term analysis. It’s not the intellectual factor, is it? (Insert favorite blonde joke here)

So what could it be? Why can women embrace adventure games, puzzle games, role-playing games, and shooters, but not wargames?

-Scott

“When you look annoyed all the time, people think that you’re busy.”

Is there anything that Seinfeld can’t teach us?