Category: Random
How Much Is Enough?
BREAKING NEWS! Recently unclassified development documents reveal astonishing details about our views on game length!
CONFIDENTIAL Unclassified Fire Hose Game Length Guidelines
1. A game should have a length that is reasonable given its price point and its genres. The pricier the game the more depth and game play it should have. It’s fine if a $1 iPhone game only has 10 minutes of game play, but a $60 PS3 game better be waaay longer. Games that rely heavily on multiplayer (like fighting and FPS games) can have much shorter campaigns, while JRPGs can have entirely unreasonable game lengths, to the point where you want to stop playing because they are so longwinded and boring. For example, Wind Waker [redacted]
2. It’s ok if an experimental/highly innovative game is a bit shorter, while well established genre titles should have more meat to them. Making generic Mario-like platformer #18? It better have some real depth to it.
3. Games should end around an hour before they lose my attention or when [redacted]. This usually occurs right around the time that game mechanics start getting reused wholesale.
4. Replayability is more important than game length. A short game that I want to play over and over again is better than a long, boring monstrosity I’ll never want to touch again.
5. There are a small, vocal minority of nuts on the internet are very sensitive about game length vs. price (see Limbo complaints). Generally they only complain about games that they like, so if you are a developer and they are complaining about your game then MAN UP AND MAKE THEM HAPPY! Add in hooks to make the game more replayable so they get their money’s worth. Don’t piss off your fans! I’m looking at you [redacted], [redacted], and [redacted].
6. You Have To Burn The Rope is hilarious, and way better than Don’t Shit Your Pants. Actually… I’m not so sure it’s better.
7. Games designed to waste your time suck and I have no intention of ever playing them or making them. See: Farmville.
Got something to say? THEN POP IN THE COMMENTS AND SAY IT ALREADY.
This is part of an industry wide day of talking about game length. Want to read more? Check out:
Jonathan Blow of Number None: http://the-witness.net/news
Ron Carmel of 2DBoy: http://2dboy.com/2010/08/17/too-short/
Chris DeLeonL: http://www.hobbygamedev.com/spx/short-videogame-design/
Dave Gilbert of Wadjet Eye Games: http://nygamedev.blogspot.com/2010/08/coming-up-short.html
Eitan Glinert of Fire Hose Games: http://www.firehosegames.com/2010/08/how-much-is-enough/
Mike Gilgenbach of 24 Caret Games: http://24caretgames.com/2010/08/16/does-game-length-matter/
Cliff Harris of Positech Games: www.cliffski.com
Chris Hecker of Spy Party: http://spyparty.com/2010/08/16/size-doesnt-matter-day/
Scott Macmillan of Macguffin Games: http://macguffingames.com/2010/if-size-doesnt-matter-where-do-you-get-the-virtual-goods
Noel Llopis: http://gamesfromwithin.com/size-matters
Peter Jones of Retro Affect: http://retroaffect.com/blog/160/Size_Doesn_t_Matter_Day/
Lau Korsgaard: http://www.copenhagengamecollective.org/2010/08/17/size-does-matter/
Martin Pichlmair of Broken Rules: http://brokenrul.es/blog
Greg Wohlwend of Intution Games: http://mile222.com/2010/08/a-haiku-about-game-length/
Jeffrey Rosen of Wolfire: http://blog.wolfire.com
August 17, 2010 | | Comments (14)
Category: Random, Rant
Tags: classified, don't shit your pants, farmville, game length, redacted, replayability, you have to burn the rope
Schwag (noun)
Schwag (noun):
1. Any free or extra goods, usually given to employees, workers, or fans. Frequently distributed at conferences.
2. Low grade marijuana
3. A rock & roll band based in St. Louis, Missouri
Guess which one UPS just delivered? Hint: we don’t accept packages from St. Louis, and anything labeled “low grade” goes against the Fire Hose lifestyle.
Yes, we have SBS schwag! And if you wanna get some be sure to visit our booth at PAX. It’ll be the extra awesome one where you can play Slam Bolt Scrappers. Sweet, right?
August 13, 2010 | | Comments (1)
Category: Random
Tags: buttons, PAX, SBS, schwag, Slam Bolt Scrappers, stickers
Why I love Boston
(inspired by Bill Reed’s post over at the Demiurge Blog)
An Open Letter to Curt Schilling (because I don’t have his e-mail address)
Dear Curt,
Dude, seriously? You’re leaving Boston for Rhode Island? This city MADE YOU. Before coming to here you were just some pitcher from Arizona, a state best known for their iced tea and cacti. You’ve upgraded! When people think of Curt Shilling now they think of the Red Sox, Fenway franks, and maybe your new video game push. Hell, your studio mascot is even a green monster!
Boston is a great city! We’ve got a growing, vibrant dev community full of brilliant and generally balanced people who are experts at making awesome games. We’ve got some of the best universities around pumping out students who are basically free slave labor *wink wink*. And we have a higher burrito joint/game developer ratio than any city east of the Rockies.
And what did you even leave Boston for? A mere… 75 million dollars? WHAT? You can get that much for moving to Rhode Island? I didn’t realize….
Hey Rhode Island, wanna cut us a piece of that action? We’re ready to move tomorrow!
ps. 38 Studios guys who don’t feel like moving, perhaps it’s time you considered an exciting switch to indie game development? We’re always looking 
July 27, 2010 | | Comments (1)
Category: Random, Rant
Tags: 38 studios, 75 million, Boston, Curt, Fenway, Massachusetts, Red Sox, Rhode Island, Schilling
Online Gaming: A Poll
I play multiplayer games all the time. While I’ve messed around with the odd MMO or two here or there (anyone else still play Starport GE?) most of the multiplayer games I go for are 2-4 player local affairs; I’m not even sure I can count how much time I spent playing Jason Miller’s Golden Eye and getting my ass kicked by his brother Greg. But I never really got into the remote networked games as I’m too into trash talking people in the room.
What about you? How many of you play non-MMO games networked online against people in other parts of the world? And what games do you play? I’m guessing TF2, Mario Kart, and Starcraft are big. Anything else? Little Big Planet, maybe? Or Rock Band? I’d love to know who plays what games, and how often. Jump in the comments and let us know!
June 1, 2010 | | Comments (5)
Category: Random
Tags:
Paper Prototyping Video Games
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!
May 24, 2010 | | Comments Off
Category: Random
Tags: Alexis, andrew, Brownell, Fierro, Foster-Dimino, GAMBIT, Gene, Generoso, Grant, Kevin, Laughlin, Matt, MIT, paper, podcast, prototype, prototyping, Sophia, Stellmach, Tech TV, Tim, Weise
On voice acting in games
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!
May 10, 2010 | | Comments (3)
Category: Random, Rant
Tags: acting, Arkham Asylum, Balthier, Batman, Cartoon, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Fran, Joker, Kevin Controy, Mark Hamil, Slippy, Star Fox, Starcraft, Terran, uncanny valley, Uncharted, Vaan, voice, Worms Armageddon, Yangus
Are Video Games Ert?
There has been a big debate lately between Roger Ebert and the video game community on whether or not video games are art. In short, Ebert is a troll and should be ignored. Rather than rehash the argument though, I thought I’d repost an insightful analysis from Magical Wasteland. Thanks to Zach Weiner (from smbc-comics) for the great comic and to Matthew Burns for the hilarious post.
The New Debate on Games as Ert
A raging war of words that never seems to disappear for long, the eternal question “are games ert?” has reared its many-spectacled head yet again. On the first side we find those who passionately believe in the idea that games are indeed ert, and wish them to be viewed as such. On the other, the stridently dubious, who feel that games are not ert, and either cannot ever be it, or at least have many steps to go in order to become it.
It is well understood that ert is important and a big deal. Many people pay respect to ert– and as such, if games became ert, then respect would be paid to games. This means we could talk about what we do in good company by saying “oh, I make video games,” and our interlocutors would respond “oh, yes, games– they are a kind of ert, aren’t they?” And we all know that this is certainly not the case right now.
To confuse matters further, there is also a contingent who have spearheaded a kind of backlash against the question itself– games, they counter, should be about something else– having “fon,” apparently, and thus it is lamentable that anything else (especially ert) would be the concern of those who make games, particularly because the quality of being “fon” interferes with, or somehow contradicts, the quality of being ert. Which begs another important question: can games be both ert and fon at the same time?
Many further symposiums, blog posts and ert-fon diagrams will be necessary to answer the question definitively.
April 26, 2010 | | Comments (1)
Category: Random, Rant
Tags: art, Burns, Ebert, ert, funny, Magical, Matthew, Roger, satire, troll, Wasteland, Weiner, Zach
PAX Pictures!
Here they are! Pictures of our new found fans playing Slam Bolt Scrappers for the first time. There are a TON of pictures, so click on the More button and go through them all to see if you can find yourself! Also be sure to post snarky comments for us, we want to know what you think!
Apparently I took way too many drugs at the conference, because that looks like a chicken.
And Ezio certainly can’t stay away from our game either.
Follow the “More” link to see the rest of these awesome pics!
March 30, 2010 | | Comments (10)
Category: Events, Random
Tags: Assasain's Creed, baby, Black Mage, Chicken, dr., east, Ezio, fans, Final Fantasy, fire hat, ghostbusters, kick ass, Larry, McNinja, PAX, photo, photos, pic, pics, picture, pictures, Slam Bolt Scrappers, spy
Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment in Final Fantasy, circa 1987
Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA) is something that has been popping up a decent amount in the video game world recently; games that automatically, or through player input, adjust the difficulty to make games easier or harder to play are appealing because they make titles usable by large ranges of the population. I realized this past weekend, while going nuts with the cgcmarathon, that it’s been around for a while and that the ORIGINAL Final Fantasy, a Dungeons and Dragons inspired 8-bit classic on the original NES, had a great self-DDA system that let the user choose how hard they wanted the game to be at the very beginning of the game! The only problem is that it isn’t clear at all that is what’ s happening, since it is the “party select” screen, and doesn’t give any hints about how hard it will make the game.
So how does Self-DDA work in Final Fantasy? Let’s examine, with this easy to reference formula.
How to determine game difficulty in Final Fantasy based on party make up
When choosing your party in Final Fantasy, there are six characters to choose from. I’ve assigned them numbers here based on their usefulness:
5 – Fighter:Can soak up damage, dish it out consistently throughout the game, and is cheaper than the mages.
3 – Black Belt: Cheap and damage dealing at higher levels, this character loses points for not being able to take a hit and for being relatively worthless in battle until around level 10 or so.
2 – Thief:A slightly less useful version of the Black Belt, except he never really gets good.
3.5 – Red Mage:Can deal damage, wear some armor, and knows both white and black magic spells to boot. A bit cheaper than his white and black variant counterparts.
1 – White Mage:Can’t take a hit, can’t deal damage, very expensive and his healing isn’t super helpful. This guy (girl?) sucks.
2 – Black Mage:Also can’t take a hit but at least can occasionally deal damage. Very expensive.
Modifiers:
-3 – No Magic: If you’ve got no mages in your party, subtract 3 from the total points. Magic is generally less useful than attacking but has a knack of pulling you out of a hard battle here and there.
-3 – No Class Change: Not getting the rat tail and doing a class change makes the end game harder as there will be weapons, armor, and magic that your characters can’t use. The end of the game is somewhat easier than the beginning though, so it’s not as damming as you might think.
Once you’ve made your party, add up the total number of points from your four characters and check against the list below. The difficulty level assumes that the player has a basic knowledge of what to do in the game but is by no means an expert who knows all the game’s secrets.
16+ points: Easy, grind free playing. Just walk through the game and kill anything in your path!
13 – 15 points: Medium difficulty, it shouldn’t be too much of a challenge.
9 – 12 points: Hard, and you’ll have to grind at points, but doable.
8 points or less: Grind-tastic. Enjoy your hard game full of pain, disappointment, and failure.
That’s it! Pick your party and you are ready to go, knowing that you have defined how difficult your game will be.
My “I want to take it easy and not have to grind at all” party? It’s these guys.
The party I played with during the CGC Marathon was probably the worst one possible. SCREW YOU, ALL WHITE MAGE PARTY!
March 5, 2010 | | Comments (5)
Category: Games, Numbers, Random
Tags: adjustment, belt, black, DDA, difficulty, dynamic, Enix, fantasy, fighter, final, mage, magic, NES, points, red, Square, thief, white
Inspector Gadget: Man or Machine?
We’ve been kicking this question around the office for a while and are unable to come up with a satisfactory answer. Is Inspector Gadget a man or a machine?
There is ample evidence that Gadget is some sort of Cyborg with extensive implants; that would certainly explain the fact that his limbs all seem to function in mechanical ways at times and “normally” at other times. It also explains his demeanor and human personality.
But at what point does one stop being a Cyborg and become a full fledged robot? Gadget regularly has things pop out of his head (see above image), implying that his skull is storage space and indicating that he may in fact be a robot. An alternate theory is that he is entirely human and has some sort of advanced nano-robotic implants which construct (and then deconstruct) his gadgets upon verbal “Go Go” commands.
The rabbit hole goes pretty deep on this one; if Gadget isn’t human, what is his relationship to Penny? Is she actually his niece, or perhaps some sort of highly trained and competent caretaker? Evidence in the cartoon show would certainly support this theory. And what about Brain? Does he have some sort of neuro-stimulation of his own going on? How else could we explain his extraordinary intelligence as a K-9?
What do you think? Let us know where you stand on this in the comments!