Monthly Archives: May 2010

Generoso Fierro has just posted a set of podcasts on paper prototyping on the GAMBIT website. Since this seems to be something mysterious that new game developers frequently wonder about I figured it’d be worth reposting here. Disclaimer: I haven’t watched the videos yet, but Gene regularly puts together kick ass stuff so I’m guessing they’re pretty good.

Gene writes:

Have you ever wondered about the first stage of creating a video game? GAMBIT’s Technical Director Andrew Grant along with GAMBIT’s Lead Game Designer, Matthew Weise lead a group of three game designers (Kevin Laughlin, Alexis Brownell and Sophia Foster-Dimino) through the paper prototyping stage of videogame development. Video Produced by Generoso Fierro, Music and Editing by Garrett Beazley.

PART ONE: Andrew and Matthew present our game designers with a concept for a game. Here begins the process of creating the gameplay! Our designers use markers on paper, blocks, string and a host of other tools to make the game a reality.

PART TWO: Our game designers have decided to abandon the “paper” stage of development and go right for the whiteboard to hash out their game.

PART THREE: Design Consultant Tim Stellmach comes by to play and review the prototype the designers have come up with based on the game concept.

If you like these videos be sure to check out episode 2. Cool Stuff!

Well, do ya? Why not say it on our shiny, brand new forums? We just got them started, and it’s a great way to talk to us, your friendly Fire Hose developers, and other fans/enemies/trolls. We’re going to have all sorts of threads about Slam Bolt Scrappers and other games, and we’d love for you to join.

Remember standard forum rules – keep on topic, and don’t be a dick. We’re going to moderate these forums so behave well. See you in the threads!

So, Halo: Reach beta – I really enjoyed it. Yeah, I said it. After almost 10 years of evolved combat, the newest iteration of Halo still has enough gusto to grab my attention. But why is that? Two words: Jet Packs.

When Halo ODST came along, it seemed thoroughly mediocre. The inspiration behind the game seemed like a solid foundation. I liked the jazz score, the dark lighting, the general ambiance, the Firefly cameos, but the excitement was missing. So, when I booted up the Reach Beta, I was doing it out of a sense of obligation (sort of like how I need to watch the Lost finale, but I don’t want to). And to my surprise, there were jet packs!

Flying really changes (evolves?) the game’s combat to the point where everything feels fresh and new again. As with each new release, there are new weapons too, but they aren’t the game changers that will bring in new fans while exciting the old. Flying is.

More importantly, the Halo series has added a new mechanic to the tired FPS genre. People frequently lament that all FPS’s are essentially the same game, but players would be hard pressed to say that about Halo: Reach after a few play throughs.

So, congratulations Bungie; You created a cool new mechanic for a genre that hasn’t really changed in the last ten years.

The Boston 100K ArtScience Innovation Fair is happening right now, and Fire Hose Games is excited to be participating.

The ArtScience Prize is an art and design idea development competition with a scientific theme created to foster a passion for creative thinking among high school students, achieved through a unique process known as idea translation. This process challenges young people to mix both aesthetic and analytical modes of thinking through experimental workshops in the arts and sciences. The ASP is an education initiative of The Idea Translation Lab at Cloud Place/ArtScience Labs in Copley.

Jeff, our Toolsmith, will be there talking to students about their creations and giving advice on how to get in to the video game industry. Plus, we’ll have Slam Bolt Scrappers setup for everyone to play, so it’s sure to be an awesome time.

Everyone here at Fire Hose Games is thrilled to be helping out the community and would like to congratulate not just the winners, but all the participants in this exciting event.

For more information on the ASP, check out this article in the Globe and these two articles from the Herald.

Anyone else here tend to hate video game cut scenes? I know I do. I usually skip right past them as quickly as possible, ignoring large portions of the plot and the characters because I find them unimpressive. My general feeling is that I’m playing a game, not watching a movie, and if I wanted the latter I’d pick up the remote.

However, good voice acting is one of the only things I’ve found that can get me to watch the cut scenes. Most video game characters are still stuck in the uncanny valley visually, but I can always suspend disbelief when characters sound good. Some of my favorite voice acted characters in past games have included Yangus from Dragon Quest VIII, the various worm teams in Worms Armageddon, the cast of Uncharted and Uncharted 2, and just about any Terran unit/hero in Starcraft.

Recently we’ve started playing Batman: Arkham Asylum at the office, and one of the things we immediately noticed was that the game uses all the voice actors from the old cartoon shows; Mark Hamil plays the Joker, and Kevin Conroy takes up his familiar mantle of Batman. As someone who watched the old cartoon shows in the 90′s I thought this was a terrific move, and for the first time in ages I found myself watching cut scenes and talking to characters just to hear what Batman (or the Joker) has to say. While there was a bit of a disconnect with animation styles (see above image) it was still immensely enjoyable listening to the characters, in a way I haven’t heard in quite some time.

Of course, voice acting can go the other way too. The voice acting and dialog of the radio chatter in Star Fox 64 was notoriously bad (especially Slippy) though I like to listen to it just because how else would I know to do a barrel roll? Final Fantasy tends to be pretty hit or miss with voices, with the balance being overall negative. In FF 12 (arguably my favorite of the series) the main character Vaan is a chore to listen to, and only Balthier and Fran have interesting voices.

Do you normally watch cut scenes? How important is voice acting for you in games? Let us know in the comments!