The Game Programmers Challenge was freakin hilarious. I got there late, so I can't give you the names of the challengers. There were two teams of three, and the participants included developers from Valve, Ion Storm, Bolt-Action Software, Microsoft, definition six, and Pseudo Interactive. I so wish I remembered some of the questions that where given out. However, looking at one of the pictures I took very closely, I can make out one question:

Q: Black and White's creature AI has been widely heralded as ground breaking. What ground-breaking thing can your creature do in Black and White?

a) Pass the Turing test
b) Accurately forecast stock prices
c) Solve the traveling salesman problem in O(n)
d) Anything Peter Molyneux pulls out of his ass (text blocked) with Rolling Stone Magazine

I think you get the general gist of the questions: raucous and completely unforgiving. Aw right!! ^_^ They hit on everything from Derek Smart and Battlecruiser Millennium to John Romero (of course). Romero was in fact the answer to this question: "Which ex-id Software employee would we most likely see test-pilot Armadillo Aerospace's first manned flight to the moon?"

Questions and Categories...

There were two rounds of play, with custom build buzzers by one of the judges. The game was played Jeopardy-style, with different categories and point values to choose from. A few examples are: Line Art, where the question was made up of line and/or circle coordinates and the challengers had to try and sketch them out and identify them; Oracle, where they would field questions taken from future Programmers Challenges; Foot In Mouth, which included questions about what game industry professionals *didn't* say.

Categories and what looks to be the start of a question... shoulda waited a bit...

One question from the Oracle category I kind of remember went something like, "(PC 6) What will Game Developer Magazine do that will send tremors throughout the industry?" and the answer was: "They give a review rating of less than four stars" lol.

I wish they would post all the questions up on a website, because they were just hilarious, I probably forgot almost all of them cause I was busy laughing my ass off. However I think they're reluctant to do so because of how many people they made fun of ^_^ I'll do some digging and hopefully can come up with more to display in all their glory - stay tuned…

After the Programmers Challenge I hooked up with my buddies and we headed over to the Fairmont for the suite parties. Here, various companies had taken over various ballrooms at the hotel and transformed them into theaters, dance halls, and general entertainment areas. In one ballroom they were showing South Park the Movie, although I don't know how in hell you could have heard it with the music pumping from the suite next door. As we were walking around my friend John was appalled at what he saw, commenting that in years past they had a lot more than what we saw that night. After roaming around the ballroom floor in search of eats (which were naught to be found except these veggie thingies in the Dolby suite - blech) we decided that Gamasutra had the best party going.

Karaoke time	The bulk of the party was here

So we mainly hung out in the Gama ballroom, where they had a bar, tables, karaoke, and two very, very cool tech demos. They had two projection screens set up with the projectors projecting white light onto them, in addition to tiny falling rocks. If you stood in front of the projector, the rocks would cascade over your shadow. They had a DV camera set up on a tripod and hooked up to a computer that did edge tracing on your shadow and made the falling rocks behave as if your shadow was a physical surface. Waving your hand in the falling stream cause the rocks to scatter. Holding your arm out and bending your elbow up caused the rocks to collect in between your arm and head - it was really neat. They also had butterflies that would lit on your steady shadow and fly off when you moved, fire that formed around your shadow, and even smoke that was affected by the light of a flashlight. Naaaarf :P

This falling rocks thing was so cool... I had to take a movie

Plus, the karaoke was a blast as well. As the night wore on and people drank more, the songs kept getting wilder and wilder, until we had one guy leaping around the stage and dancing wildly as he sang "Mad About You." Then they also had a conga line going to that song about Lola the Showgirl, as well as a whole group of conference associates and a few developers dancing to the Time Warp. Quality entertainment right there folks ^_^

Conga line!	The partygoers dance it up to a GDC version of Backstreet's Back

We also spent some time hanging out in the Dolby suite. They had an underground DJ in there pumping the beat so loud you couldn't hear yourself think - it was awesome. Of course the problem arises when you realize that the female to male ratio in this industry is like 1:500 and finding someone to actually dance with is like finding a needle in a haystack. Doh. I didn't even have light sticks fer cripes sakes. I was so pissed. So I just got to stand there, like everyone else, and fume. Okay there were people with light sticks dancing, and I was the only one fuming. Mental note for next year…

Today I attended Chris Crawford's lecture entitled "Stories You Can't Tell." This was something I had been looking forward to ever since I began chatting with Chris on the IGDA boards. For those who haven't heard of him, he's the man who founded the GDC way back when 15-20 people would just meet at his house. Obviously it's come quite a ways since then. His lecture was about stories and interactive story telling. I tried to take notes, but he didn't use slides and talked to fast. He was a very animated speaker, I have to admit. In one example he acted out a scene where the character was hiding behind the tree (the podium) where he was about to shoot monsters and has a flashback about his wife and baby daughter walking down the sidewalk, "When all of the sudden this big huge monster drops from the trees and starts tearing my wife to shreds!" He leaps forward and makes slashing motions. "Blood and pieces are flying every where as the monster stomps on her body!" He hops up and down smashing the floor. "And then he picks up my baby and tears it to shreds, little pieces flying all over the place - and he stomps on her!" More slashing and jumping. Then the flashback is over and Chris moves back to the podium (tree) - "And that's why I kill!" He leaps out and aims an imaginary gun, "BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM!!!!!"

Ooookay Chris :)

Yep, that's an overhead projector	Chris laughs at something I can't remember

The basic point to Chris' lecture was that games and stories do not mix very well. He's been looking at the interactive story for about 10 years now, so I think he knows his stuff. He argued that story and gameplay where always two separate factors. You had the game's story, yet the story itself did not directly impact on the way the game was played in any way. The use of drama in games is virtually impossible, he said, because of the simplistic verbs we use: "turn left, walk ten steps, turn right, walk five steps, turn left, open car door, get in car, close car door…" Therefore, he said, we need to start using more complex verbs when describing game actions. He also compared the act of integrating story directly into a game as climbing a mountain, and the algorithm we were using was, "… to pick a point on all four sides of us that is higher than the one we are standing on, then move to that point and repeat the process. Eventually we'll reach a point where no other point is taller than us. Have we reached the top of the mountain? No! It's just a small hill!"

Chris' lecture was quite entertaining, and I think he got across his point rather well, even if I didn't right now cause I didn't take notes, dammit ^_^ The moral of the story (no pun intended) is that games aren't ready to be interactive movies just yet. It's good that a game has a storyline to follow, but to create a story that drives a game with emotions and theatrical elements is still a ways off. That's not to say it shouldn't be attempted, he was just giving fair warning to anyone who would listen.

These images don't look pretty when enlarged, believe me. I used exposure mode without steadying the camera :P

One minor incident cropped up after Chris announced that he had 70 copies of his book available in boxes up front. A few minutes later as Chris was just beginning to wrap up, a guy came up, took a book, and left. I steeled myself, saying "uh-oh" and waited for the floodgates to open.. About a minute went by and I started to relax - but then the mad rush began as people climbed over one another, biting, kicking… okay it really wasn't like that :P But nonetheless the platform was stormed as developers raced to grab a copy - while Chris was still talking. This incensed me and my buddy Jeff to no end, especially since we never got a copy because we were too polite to get up while Chris was still talking and take one. For cripes sakes people show some manners.

Beware the vultures!

Every year the IGDA has a meeting that is open to all IGDA members (and non-members, but few of those showed up of course) where the Board of Directors convenes and gives a presentation of what went on over the last year with the IGDA, as well as what the IGDA should focus on in the coming year.

Starting off the meeting was Warren Spector (Secretary), announcing that he is stepping down from the board to better pursue his goals towards fostering and furthering the educational community. He stated the IGDA has grown far beyond what it was when he was first chaired, and now leaves its responsibility to others as he moves on. We'll all miss him on the Board but we'll certainly benefit from his more focused attention on Academia.

Warren Spector says farewell

Next Jason Della Rocca (Program Director) stepped up to the mike to go over the IGDA's state of affairs for the year 2001. The news was all good, with IGDA membership up 80% and a tripled membership renewal rate. Several new chapters had started all over the world, including Malaysia, Toronto and Brazil, increasing the current count to 37. Various SIGs (Special Interest Groups) such as the Women in Games Committee and the Violence Committee further solidified their charters and began moving towards physical goals. The Online Games Committee released their ~60-page white paper, available free for download online in PDF format. Looking ahead to 2002, emphasis was placed on chapters (especially student chapters, see Day 5), expanded committee work, and the growth of membership.

JDR gives an overview of the IGDA, circa 2001

After Jason was done, Jennifer Pahlka (Executive Director) stepped forth for a moderated discussion on what the IGDA should focus on under various topics such as awards, general feedback, chapter support, etc. General feedback included comments on better-price student passes, an internship registry, the archiving of old game design documents, and developer/retailer outreach. Awards were discussed to encourage membership and participation, including heavily discounted or free GDC passes, games given out by developers, signed game copies, a hall of fame, and an award for constant renewals of membership over periods of time. Chapter support included the IGDA supplying banners to the chapters so they could hang them in meeting areas, as well as a database of willing speakers to call upon for chapter meetings based on their whereabouts.

Jen Pahlka leads the moderated discussion

After the moderated suggestion session, discussion turned towards the upcoming vote for the Board of Directors. Each Director on the Board serves a two-year term before they have to be either replaced or re-elected. The three board members leaving this year are

• Warren Spector - ION Storm Austin (Secretary)
• Julian Eggebrecht - Factor 5 (Treasurer)
• Matt Toschlog - Outrage Entertainment (Chairperson)

Matt will be moving into the non-voting position of Chairman Emeritus, replacing Alex Jarett (Broadband Entertainment Group). Although three slots exist on the board, only two will be up for elections since the third slot will go to David Weinstein (Red Storm) as per agreement upon the IGDA merging with the International Game Developers Network in March 2001. The candidates for the Board election all got a few minutes to give their candidacy speech. However Scott Miller was unable to attend the conference and Greg Zeschuck was unable to attend the meeting.

Mark Baldwin	Jim Charne	Jeff Lander	Brian Robbins

Kathy Schoback	David Weinstein

After the candidates where done speaking, the floor was open for general Q&A with the Board members. After that the meeting came to a close. Below is a picture of the IGDA Board of Directors. From left to right: Alex Jarett, Jason Della Rocca, Rob Heubner, Warren Spector, Greame Devine, and Julian Eggebrecht. Matt Toschlog was unfortunately unable to make the conference. And yes, although it does appear that Greame has a very long a bushy beard, that's just his long hair ^_^

IGDA Board of Directors

This lecture was one of the few I had been looking forward to since I first saw it. Hal Barwood (LucasArts) and Noah Falstein (The Inspiracy) had combined strengths to give the presentation entitled "More of the 400: Discovering Design Rules." It was held in the Civic Auditorium (the same place as the Game Developers Choice Awards), which was great from a presentation point of view. I sat way up front so the flat-panel plasma screens gave a crisp view of the slides. They went through the slides at like 5 per minute so it was tough for me to keep up with my note taking in the beginning. But when they started discussing the actual rules things became easier.

Hal Barwood and Noah Falstein

If anyone is unfamiliar with the design rules that Noah and Hal are looking to uncover, they should check out this month's or last month's issue of Game Developer Magazine where Noah has a column dedicated to these rules. The point is for designers to submit rules to build up a database that designers can use in creating their games. The rules can possibly trump others under given situations, and each rule has a domain that specifies where it can be applied (what genre, for instance). Although the number 400 is used, that certainly isn't an end goal.

Hal Barwood speaking about the 400 Project

In the lecture Noah and Hal released six new rules that had been submitted:

5) Provide clear short-term goals - for example in Diablo II when you enter the first cave you are given a goal: "Kill all monsters." It doesn't get much clearer than that, that's for sure. The purpose of this rule is to keep the player focused on a task. If they lose focus, they may stop playing the game.

6) Identify constraints (creative, technical, business, team, political) - This is a rule that is commonly ignored or simply forgotten. One example they gave was the acquisition of skills on the part if the player. Noah gave the example with skiing. You start out at a level of unconscious incompetence, where you look at a skier and say, "I can do that easy." You reach conscious incompetence when you actually try it for yourself and realize that you can't get your skis uncrossed. Next comes conscious competence, where you can ski okay, but you still have to think about leaning forward in your boots and planting your poles. The last level is unconscious competence, where you're off skiing without thinking about doing it.

7) Maintain suspension of disbelief - if there's any golden rule in game design, this one is definitely it. You don't want the player to remember that he is just playing a game, you want to immerse him in the environment to a level that he thinks he's the character he's playing. Wrecking suspension of disbelief can kill gameplay instantly.

8) Emphasize exploration and discovery - games that become stale do so because they are stale. You want to introduce new landscapes, puzzles, patterns in pickup items, dangers, monster, etc. Switch things up to give the player reason to explore farther. Have them saying, "What's that?" often. This rule gets trumped by rule 5.

9) Let the player turn the game off - I like this rule :) Hah to all you weird save game people who want to make the players work in order to save their games, you evil people you. Games are meant to entertain, not punish, as they put it, and you are only punishing a player by making him save only between levels (Project IGI) and only after collecting a certain amount of coins (Maximo). Yeesh. However this rule can be trumped by rule 6, which leaves open the suggestion that under certain circumstances, the save game can be modified.

10) Build subgames - don't just make the game one whole piece, break it down into subgames that define a little portion of the overall game. This allows for easier self-tuning of the gameplay mechanics - you can tweak subgames independently of one another. This rule can be trumped by #7 and trumps the Fight Player Fatigue rule (which was one of four declared in Hal Barwood's lecture at the 2001 GDC entitled "4 out of the 400")

Noah Falstein wraps up after the rules

After the lecture was over I hopped up onto the stage to talk to Noah and Hal about rule #9, since I had just written a column on that exact topic for Pixelate. I was promptly kicked off by the stagehands, so I waited for them to gather up their stuff and come down. We talked for a few minutes, coming to the conclusion that the save-anytime method was simply the best way to do things in every situation. It basically alienated the least amount of people we decided, next to save between levels and collecting items, which just plain pisses people off. It should be noted however that someone in the audience did actually bring up the subject of having different save game systems for certain situations, to which Hal and Noah challenged that a rule or set of rules be brought forth to take this into account.

For any experienced game designers looking to contribute to the 400 Project, email Noah Falstein at noah@theinspiracy.com with your game design background and he'll hit you back with how to submit rules.

Vincent Scheib

With the Demo Scene screening occurring in the same noisy, brightly-lit cavern of a room as both the GDC Expo and "lunch room", a lot of the impact of the different demos was lost. The music was nearly drowned out by the blaring sounds and droning commentary of the nearest booths, and the lights of the room washed away a lot of the vibrancy of the video images.

Still, overall, the screening was enjoyable with some very impressive entries.

The standout demo (to me, anyway), was "Pandalization". Featuring electronic creatures flying about a cityscape "pandalizing" the buildings to the beat of a techno soundtrack, the demo was both visually and aurally satisfying--and with a cute story too. What is "pandalizing"? Pandalizing is painting giant black and white pandas on the sides of the buildings...

Presenter: Richard Garfield

Based on the incredible success of Magic: The Gathering, Richard Garfield of Wizards of the Coast presented tips on designing games based on tradable objects.

Games based on competition between unequally equipped opponents is not a new concept. There have always been games between players of different aptitudes (chess, foot races), different sides (Fox & Geese, craps), and different equipment (car racing, golf). With Tradable Object Games (TOGs), these differences are embraced and made the focus of the game.

Vocabulary of TOGs:
Deck - the player's current equipment in use during a game or match
Collection - all of the player's available equipment; what the player chooses from to create his deck
Orthogame - a game with a winner and loser, a single match
Vanity Object - a special object with no functional difference in the game, which looks different and provides status and individuality for the player

It's important that all objects in a TOG have an underlying "cost" associated with them. This cost is expressed in either time spent in acquiring the object, or the amount of money that can be spent to buy it. If an object has no cost, then trading between players won't occur.

Another factor in TOG is deck size. Deck size is the fundamental way competition between all players is kept "fair". Deck size provides a limit that requires players to make strategic decisions about what objects, from all those they have available, that they will use in a given orthogame.

It's also important that the available objects have a significant amount of diversity. Homogeneity in a TOG is not desirable. With this diversity, though, you should make sure that there a lot of objects that do not dominate each other. This provides another level of strategic decision making for the players as they compose their decks.

Based on M:TG, the following are recommendations for object diversity:

• Have a lot of "top end" objects (with the above-mentioned caveat of minimal domination)
• Have a few "bottom end" objects that are useable, but that players can learn not to use.
• Have a full spectrum of objects between those two.

All of this leads to the question, "How big should the total collection of objects in the game be?" Too large and too small are both bad for the game. Too large and player interest in collecting (AKA "buying") the whole collection wanes. Also, with more objects available individual objects become less interesting. Finally, the sheer diversity may make forming real strategies impossible, and may make new players balk at what they have to learn/acquire to play.

Too small of a collection size, though, is also undesireable because it limits player variety and erodes metagame choices. Finally, too few objects may mean that players are "leaving money on the table", money they would have been willing to spend on the game.

So now you've set your deck size and created a diverse set of non-dominating, interesting objects that seems to be just the right size. How often do you introduce new items or sets of items into the game? Like total collection size, the amount of flux in the game should not be either too slow or too fast. If you introduce new objects only very rarely, the play environment can stagnate, and the long-time players begin to dominate. And like having too small a total collection, players may be leaving money on the table.

Conversely, if the game evolves too quickly, with too many new objects being added in a short time, no lasting "game science" develops. In this case, power shifts to the newer players with the more "up to date" objects.

All of these issues affect the "cost of being competitive". This cost is how much the player must invest up front, and over time, to be competitive in the game. Players are very interested in the incremental value of their investment. Rarity levels can help maintain incremental increases in object value. And it's interesting to note that the higher-invested players can actually get a higher incremental value as they continue to invest in the game.

The session also touched on issues of item expiration as a way of maintaining control over the game environment, and as a way of keeping player investment up.

Finally, the session talked about the importance of the secondary market for TOGs. If the players value the objects in the game, and they are allowed to trade them, then the secondary market will appear.

There are a number of benefits to having a secondary market for the game. First off, the players' investment in the game is legitimized. They can see that what they have purchased retains value, and possibly even grows in value. The secondary market also forms a community of players. Most importantly, though, the secondary market tells you how much the players value your game.

Roundtable Host: Daniel Greenberg
IGDA Roundtable

Sex in games was barely discussed as the discussion quickly rekindled the long-running debate about the nearly universal presence of violence in games.

There was some discussion of how some game content, particularly involving terrorists, had been either cut or modified following 9/11. In one case, a designer expressed doubt that she could reasonably be involved in designing/creating a game with a strong terrorist presence.

The usefulness (or not) of the current ESRB ratings was also discussed (with yours truly, a parent of an 8-year-old son voicing his support for them). There was some discussion of what else could be done to make the ratings system even more useful.

(click to enlarge)

In the past, I had never really paid much attention to level design, but as I started trying to design levels for a new game, I realized I had a lot to learn. So, I decided to attend Jolyon Leonard's lecture on the basics of outdoor level design.

Jolyon did level design for Project IGI, a primarily outdoor game that received some good reviews in the gaming magazines. Jolyon certainly had a grasp on his subject matter, providing tons of real-world examples from Project IGI.

Contrary to what Ernie thought, we didn't all go outside and talk about level design. This talk was about how to craft outdoor environments that look realistic. Far too often games create "walled in" outdoor environments, where you eventually come to a grouping of trees that's really a wall textured as a bunch of trees. We've all seen this, and it really breaks the illusion of being outdoors.

Jolyon described several ways around this problem, including, for example, putting nothing there at all. Just let your player walk, and they'll eventually realize through boredom that the action is behind them. You might even consider using dynamically generated landscapes, so that your terrain wasn't flat and barren to infinity.

Another tactic: use minefields, or something that slowly kills the player as they walk away from the action. This is the videogame equivalent of those dog collars that allow you to keep your dog on your property without a fence - something unpleasent eventually guides the dog (and the player) back to where they should be.

Jolyon also mentioned on several occasions that you shouldn't overdo it. Like lens flare, outdoor environments work best when they're subtle. Don't populate your levels with huge mountains, steep cliffs, etc. Instead, use subtle rolling hills, and use cliffs only as a form of wall.

Also, pay attention to the sky. I never really stopped to think about this, but Jolyon mentioned that 30-50% of what's on the screen is the sky. Use coloring, moving clouds, and weather effects to add atmosphere (no pun intended) and a sense of drama to your levels.

Overall, this talk provided a good introduction to the art of outdoor level design. There were plenty of examples, and lots of little tidbits that I hadn't considered before.

Mason McCuskey
Spin Studios
www.spin-studios.com

Jerome Lengyel (formerly of Microsoft's research group, now with the XBox team) described how extremely realistic fur and hair can be modeled using a system of shells (a series of small extrusions of a model's mesh) and fins (extrusions of edges). This effect can be seen in NVIDIA's werewolf demo that was released with the GeForce4 launch. The technique is far too complex to go into here, so I'll direct you to the following links:

http://developer.nvidia.com/
http://www.ati.com/developer/indexsc.html
http://research.microsoft.com/~jedl/

In addition to fur, Jerome showed the technique being used with grass. He encouraged people to find other applications of it as well. Although using this can make a model 16-20 times more expensive to render, the cost can be worth it.