Posts by Justin
Not Just a Day Job
It’s amazing to work with people who love what they do enough to do it at home, off the clock.
Brad contributes to the open-source Drupal project. Eric works on various web-based applications (most of them a secret at this point). Ken designs websites.
Speaking of, one of Ken’s personal projects, parkviewbaptist.net, was recently included in a web design inspiration book: The Web Designer’s Idea Book. It’s available, of course, at Amazon.com.
The Fun of Making Games Fun
Much to my 8-year-old daughter’s enjoyment, we make a lot of games around here. We’re rounding third base on our latest game right now. Animations are in place. Game play is mostly built out. After several months of work, we’re finally to the part where we get to play it for the first time.
Trouble is, it isn’t much fun. Something’s missing… the essential chemistry of style, pace, and challenge isn’t quite right.
Don’t Panic
It isn’t a problem. We’ve just made it to that point in the game development cycle where we get to pull everything together and actually make it fun.
In our experience, fun almost always comes late in the development cycle for games. It requires having all of the pieces in place in a way that can actually be played with and experienced. The concept is important, of course; as is each character and object in the game, which go through their own cycles of feedback and revision. But the thing that actually makes the game a game, the compelling dynamic that comes from the way each element interacts with its environment, is often sorted out late in process. In a way, we spend the first 80–90% of the development cycle creating opportunities. The last 10–20% of development is spent capitalizing on those opportunities.
A Couple Examples
Midnight Messenger
In Midnight Messenger, Li Ming wanders through swamps and forests with a jar of fireflies to light her way. Early in the design process, we decided that the level should never actually fade to total blackness. Rather, if Li Ming lost fireflies during game-play, the level would fade to a dark gray. Why? A completely dark environment covered up all of the illustrations and animations that made the game look so captivating, and when completely black, the game screen designs looked really boring.Once we had all of the elements in place, though, and could actually play the game, we realized that this was in fact exactly how it should have been. Making the level fade all the way to black as Li Ming lost fireflies was what made the game fun. We made that change, which led to one more: we made the fireflies remain visible — as dancing orbs of light — even as the screen fades to black. The user could see the fireflies, but couldn’t see the obstacles between them and Li Ming.
This combination of changes, while fairly simple and late in the development process, were what made the game so compelling and fun.
Wrekin’ Ball Billie
In Wreckin’ Ball Billie, Billie drives his wrecking ball crane through a neighborhood and tears down poverty housing. Where each dilapidated house is demolished, a crew from Habitat for Humanity appears to rebuild a replacement.We originally envisioned Wreckin’ Ball Billie as a slow-paced game where the user carefully arranges the crane with the arrow keys, lines up the wrecking ball on a trajectory that will slam into the appropriate house, and presses the space bar to let it go. The challenge would be in correctly setting up the crane and making sure no neighboring structures were damaged.
Once we had the prototype in place, however, we realized that the compelling opportunity was in speeding up the pace. The crane should drive quickly from one house to the other. Controls should be simple, and users should pound away at the keyboard to tear down houses. Caution to the wind, this demolition game became a race against time and a frenzy of destruction (all for a good cause, of course).
Planning for the Unknown
In light of the fact that there are almost always significant changes in game play toward the final stages of the project, we have found it incredibly important that all development is executed in as flexible a way as possible. Clean, well-commented code is a good starting point. In addition, every factor in game play that could be variable should be variable. Throughout the process, we work to identify potential areas of change; for example, “We might want the kid to run faster,” or, “We may want a steeper camera angle.” We often find it difficult to know what the final decision for these variables will be, and build for flexibility wherever we can.
We have also found it critical to identify what isn’t flexible, early in the process. That way, we know what isn’t on the table for change once we have a prototype. Understanding our limitations in the project lets developers avoid the frustration of dealing with impossible requests, and gives us helpful boundaries for fine-tuning the compelling challenge of the game.
Hitting that point where we finally have an actual prototype to play with, and implementing changes that make it come alive, is an exciting and necessary step in the process. Being ready for these changes, and embracing the opportunities we discover, is critical. For us, this is the step that makes games fun.
Drupal YouTube Module on the YouTube Developer Blog
This summer Brad released an API module that provides a toolkit to help Drupal module developers interact with YouTube. Yesterday there was a post about the module by Jochen Hartmann, of the YouTube APIs and Tools Team, on the YouTube Developer API Blog.
The YouTube API module was originally created to dynamically publish uploaded video from iCitzenForum.com to YouTube. We’re glad to see it getting more use!
Fresh Paint
The Aten Design Group website has a new look. Well, maybe not an altogether new look, but a revised look. We’ve modified the typography, adjusted the layout, and made some color changes. The blog sports a reversed color scheme, with syntax highlighting for code examples.
The copy has changed, too. We’ve added projects to the portfolio, added text about our technical proficiencies and our iterative process, and added a couple employee profiles.
And then there is the technical platform - you guessed it, that changed also. We moved from a hybrid combination of custom PHP plus WordPress to a shiny clean installation of Drupal. The new framework provides a more robust environment for potential changes in the future, offers site-wide categorization, and provides better user management for delegating content development internally. It’s easier to publish content, faster.
So maybe “Fresh Paint” is a bit of an understatement — it’s more like “New Foundation, New Walls, New Furniture and Fresh Paint.” But what a mouthful.
Programmer Wanted
We're looking for a PHP developer to join our team in Denver. This will begin as a freelance position, with flexible but close to full-time hours through at least June and July. We're hopeful that the position grows into something long-term, provided we find a good-fit developer.
Here's a description of the person we're looking for:
- Highly self-motivated
- Perfectionist and details-oriented
- Thorough
- Able to work well in a team setting
- Responds well to constructive criticism - embraces an iterative process
- Has PHP experience - preferably 2 years or more
- Some Drupal experience is a big plus, but not critical
Please submit your resume and/or portfolio, three or more professional references, and your hourly freelance rate to work@atendesigngroup.com. We'd love to tell you all about how great it is to work at Aten.