How Indie Games Can Be Cheap and Awesome

I got to go to PAX over the weekend and be on a panel and see cool gaming stuff and meet lots of cool people and fans of my games. One of the things I learned is that a lot of people actually read my blog. This is very gratifying. Although it terrifies me that anyone thinks my opinion is in any way significant.

PAX is great, of course. Though it is in the unenviable position of being permanently unable to satisfy the massive demand for tickets.

(Sure, its success will probably invite others to copy it with their own gaming cons, but those dopplegangers won't be the same without the presence of all the big companies showing off their stuff. And big companies won't go to a lot of cons, as they need to set aside at least a little time to make games. So, from now on, if you manage to score a PAX badge, just cherish it, knowing that your attendance the following year is unlikely. Just think of PAX as a hot but extremely unstable boy/girlfriend.)

I had a lot of little epiphanies while looking at the many, many highly promising indie games on display at PAX. (The PAX 10 looked cool as always, but the much flashier Indie Megabooth next door seemed to be sucking up its oxygen.) And here is the biggest one:

16-bit graphics are an awesome thing, and more indies should use them.

If you don't know what 16-bit graphics are, think early Nintendo/Super Nintendo. If that still doesn't ring a bell, look here. Or here. Or here. Or especially here.

If you are a small game developer, you have a big problem. You want your game to look great. But graphics can be expensive. Or very expensive. 16-bit graphics solve the great mystery of writing a game with a small team and no budget: making decent production values cheaply in a short amount of time.

Here is what 16-bit Nintendo-style graphics have going for them:

1. They work. Heck, people wrote awesome games using them for years.

2. They look good. It's amazing how evocative an icon you can make with a few well-chosen pixels.

3. They're cheap and quick to make. One talented artist can produce a game's worth in an entirely reasonable amount of time.

4. You have the power of nostalgia working for you. To a whole generation of gamers, those icons are as warm and comforting as a Snuggie.

5. Because of #4, anyone who takes cheap shots at your graphics looks like a jerk.

6. Versatility. With care, they can blend with much more detailed and 3-D effects. Fez is a fantastic example of this. You don't have to be pure when you use this style.

Right now, this style of graphics is seen as a pure nostalgia play, a way of saying, "Look! We look like a Nintendo game! We're silly! Tee hee!" But I think 16-bit graphics are better than that. They've been used in a million great games, and they can be used in a million more. The more people use them, the more they will be seen as an entirely legitimate art style, which in turn will make them available to more generations of poor, promising designers.

Indie devs, don't be afraid to be cheap! It is your sacred right and responsibility as an Indie!

Watch Me Talk About Something!

Casual Connect is an annual convention in Seattle dedicated to the discussion of casual computer games, the design and marketing of same, and how to write games that milk every last penny from your aunt by getting her to bug you on Facebook for cow clicks or Smurfberries or whatever.

Anyway, they were kind enough to ask me to speak about storytelling in computer games for their Indie track. I gave my talk, and they filmed it. My talk is online here. Please enjoy my sultry voice, questionable game design principles, and unique posture. 

Or not. The talk is 20 minutes long. You could probably more profitably spend your time doing, say, ANYTHING ELSE.

(Technical note: My slides are a .pdf. I know. I suck and am unclassy. But my main life goal is to reach death without ever learning how to use Powerpoint, and I'm sticking with it.)

The most interesting thing about Casual Connect? How weird anyone who sells software in the old school way is made to feel. Here's what I do: I write a game. I give it to you in return for a set number of dollars. Then we part ways, and you never have to look at my pale, beardy face again.

This model is so incredibly retro now! Pay money for a game? Nonsense! Everyone real makes their money with microtransactions and advertising and nickle and diming you for packs of 100 Dragon Bux you can use to make your zombie ninja pirate dragon grow faster. And if you make money any other way, people in suits will act very nervous and not make eye contact with you anymore.

If you end up at Casual Connect and talking to actual grown-up business people, I suggest you do what I did: Have a firm, manly handshake. Make eye contact. Say "monetize" and "ARPU" as much as possible. And then pee yourself.

A Couple of Cheap Shots at Big Movies. Because I'm So Smart.

I just went to see the new Batman movie, which was so long that I am still watching it. It's about a guy named Bane with a weird accent and a bunch of issues, who is only defeated when the good guys finally manage to figure out his secret weakness. (Spoiler: It's bullets.)

Since it's a Big Hollywood Movie, it was preceded by trailers for all the other upcoming Big Hollywood Movies. Two of them attracted my notice ...

Jack Reacher (Trailer here. It is worth watching, as this movie will be genuinely terrible.)

This is about a violent gun guy who goes on adventures and beats people up and "doesn't care about proof, doesn't care about the law. He only cares about what's right." Which all sounds great until you find out he's Tom Cruise.

I'm sorry, but is there one single person here on God's Green Earth (besides Tom Cruise) who thinks it's a good idea to give Tom Cruise arbitrary power over anything bigger than a Hot Dog On a Stick franchise?

"Remember, you wanted this."

NO! I REALLY DIDN'T!

The Hobbit (Trailer here. Watch it before they split it into three parts.)

I can't say much about the upcoming Hobbit movies, though I hear the the novelization of the film by J.R.R.R. Tolkineinin is above average. I know that the world created in the prequels by Peter Jackson is an interesting one, though overly dependent on tired fantasy tropes.

I do, however, have some qualms with the decision to split the book up into three (THREE!) movies. I'm sorry, but you cannot do this with any book whose big, dramatic high point is a RIDDLE CONTEST.

Seriously, when I was a kid, they could wrap this crap up in 77 minutes, and that version even found time to put in Tom Bombadil.

I was really looking forward to it until I saw this trailer, with its wacky dwarves, interminable pacing, and refreshing lack of action or incident. Three movies? Dear God. This adaption will be so long that I'm already watching it.

OH GOD MY FACE MY HORRIBLE HORRIBLE FACE

There was one more thing I wanted to say about Mass Effect (to accompany my earlier articles on the title). After heavy play of the second and third games in the series, I want to propose a rule to all game designers from now until forever ...

It is OK to make the player's character look ugly and twisted, as long as it is in a cute, cartoonish way. It is not OK to make the main character actively horrifying and painful to look at.

I think this is a reasonable rule of thumb. If you're going to expect someone to spend 40 hours in your fantasy world, you don't want them going "GAHHHH!!!" every time they look at the screen.

Why do I bring it up?

Well, in Mass Effect, the main spectrum for your character's moral choices is between Paragon (nice, lawful good, goody-two-shoes) and Renegade (harsh, Bad Cop, Patton-type). Note that this is not Good vs. Evil! You're always good. It's just whether you are nice-good or cranky-good.

But there is a key difference between the two paths. If you are a Paragon, you stick with the nice, normal face you made in character creation. However, if you choose the Renegade dialogue options, your face will look like this ...

AHHHH! GHHAHHHH! WTF!?!?!?

That's right. When playing Mass Effect, you better be as polite to as many people as you can, if you don't want to look like a hideous mutant leperzombie whose face is peeling off in glowing sheets.

(Note that, in both Mass Effect 2 and 3, you can spend resources to remove the leperface effect. While BioWare likes to pretend it treats both moral choices equally, this sort of gives the game away. They are actively punishing you for being rude. If you doubt this, remember: A Paragon player can't spend resources to get the zombie look. It only works the other way 'round.)

Mass Effect is known for its in-game romances. Halfway through Mass Effect 3, for example, your hot, easy secretary comes to your quarters to use your shower and totally tries to bang you. (Warning: The previous sentence contained a spoiler!) Bioware, please please please, in future games make it so I don't feel sorry for anyone trying to sleep with my character. When she makes her move, I, as a player, don't want be saying:

"What are you DOING? Haven't you looked at me? Haven't you seen my FACE? Sure, I have a working shower! Now run! RUN! I'M A MONSTERRRRR!"

Look. These things are basically adolescent wish fulfillment. I don't need to have a really gross face in my fantasy world. I've had enough of that in my actual physical adolescent life, thanks.

Mass Effect 3 Review: The Ending, Before and After!

The ending of the Mass Effect series has been discussed a lot. A LOT. It's kind of an unprecedented situation. 

BioWare, a company known for awesome video game storytelling, creates a trilogy of games in one of the most well-realized imaginary worlds ever created in the medium. People love this world. Passionately. Then BioWare fails to stick the landing. Deafening rage and butthurt echo across the Internets, who have nothing more important to worry about. So BioWare, at what I'm sure was considerable expense, makes a free patch to expand the ending. It makes things kind of better. Life, somehow, continues.

(By the way, this whole sorry incident is excellent proof that their IS such a thing as bad publicity. BioWare's reputation for good storytelling is invaluable. They saw it threatened. They reacted appropriately. But I don't think anyone working there is happy this happened.)

What the ending screams to me is that the developers didn't have the time and budget to do the ending they wanted to do. ME3 is SO ambitious and covers SO much ground that they didn't have time to give the Reaper issue the attention it needed. But this isn't the end of the world. The Reapers were never very multi-dimensional. The Krogan and Geth and even Cerberus were far more interesting.

So, if this is the case, piling onto the ending seems a little mean. Making a video game requires doing much with limited resources. You can't afford to do everything.

But, then again, after three games of this size, we have an expectation that the writers will end it well. I want to talk about my two problems with the ending- one which the patch fixes, one it doesn't. I aim to discuss game storytelling in general and what does and doesn't work.

(Please be assured that the following has no spoilers for Mass Effect 3 whatsoever!!!! If, for some reason, you don't believe me, leave immediately!)

What Is NOT a Problem

Some criticized the ending for creating some plot inconsistencies with things learned in the DLC for Mass Effect 2. (Namely, that blowing up a mass relay destroyed the solar system before and now it doesn't.) The horrors.

DOES ANYONE REALLY ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT THIS!?!? IF SO, RAISE YOUR HAND.

(Pause.)

I didn't think so.

Also, some put a lot of time into proving Shepherd was actually under Reaper control and the last game was a dream or something. (The famed Indoctrination Theory.) Of course this wasn't true. This was a AAA mega-million dollar game series that had always approached everything in a reasonably sane manner. They weren't going to end it with goofy Sixth Sense trickery.

And many thought that you didn't find out enough about what happened to your friends and to all the races you helped. I can buy this as a complaint, but it's a judgment call. I honestly felt I'd learned enough about what was going on and where things were heading to have closure. Bloody, unrelentingly gruesome closure.

So what are the problems?

Problem 1 - The Incredible Grimness

The unpatched ending of Mass Effect 3, unless you do a ton of side-quest farming and multiplayer, is awe-inspiringly grim. Everyone dies. Shepherd dies. The mass relays are destroyed. The Normandy is a wreck. The Earth is a cinder, surrounded by fleets of aliens stranded far from home. (Including the notoriously peaceful and easy-going krogan.) Space travel is over for, well, a very long time, if not forever.

Dude. And I thought the ending to The Sopranos was a poke in the eye.

But here's the thing. This aspect of the ending is legit. People don't generally like unhappy endings, but this is a subjective judgment. Unhappy endings are legal. They are allowed. It's not where I would go as the default ending for a series of this magnitude, and it is a HUGE change in tone from what came before it. But it is not technically wrong.

And, just between you, me, and these four walls? I admire their balls for going so dark. I wish more developers did it. Unless you believe things can go really wrong, there is no real sense of achievement or relief when they go right. One of the reasons Law & Order was such a compelling show is that the bad guys frequently won.

But the patch changed this. It's less bleak. Gives more hopeful details of the future. I can live with it either way.

But what really bugs me is the main element of the ending.

Problem 2 - The Star Child. Or Whatever.

My biggest disappointment in the ending of Mass Effect is this: It was a cheap deus ex machina. I didn't get to make the WIN for the team.

Look. The galaxy was invaded by the horde of horrible bug creatures. I wanted to FIGHT them. I wanted to figure out their weaknesses. I wanted to use the cunning and resources of the peoples of the galaxy to figure out how to kill them, and DO THAT. I wanted the ending of the story to be a celebration of courage and general badassery.

What did I get? You take some weird spaceship and stick it into some other spaceship. And then baby SpaceJesus (tm) appears from somewhere and uses StarMagic (tm) in the way you tell him, and this makes everything different forever.

Now, let's set aside the ookyness of having the fate of the whole galaxy be decided on a whim by one bloodthirsty gun guy who happened to be at the right place at the right time. I think the ending was perfunctory, non-sensical, and a true wasted opportunity.

At the end, you push a button to choose the fate of the galaxy. It did not provide a fraction of the joy I would have felt at actually finding a way for humanity to take down those stupid Reaper ships ourselves. The ending, as written, was the space opera equivalent of giving the last place soccer team a trophy for Trying Very Hard.

Whew. I Should Take a Pill.

I generally love BioWare games and write nice things about them, so much so that I have been accused of sucking up to them to try to get a job. (I have a job, thanks. And, believe me, if BioWare wanted me, they'd have said something to me by now. They know I exist.)

It's a great series, full of fond memories. My wife and I spent an enormous amount of time in their world, and I don't regret it. I still recommend it, especially ME1 and ME2. And then ME3 with the patched ending.

So. Any news about Dragon Age 3 yet?

Mass Effect 3 Review: The Good Stuff

Since I write so much in this space about fantasy role-playing games in general and Bioware stuff in particular, I feel kind of lame for saying nothing of note so far about Mass Effect 3 (ME3). The Mass Effect series is one of the best series in the genre, written by one of the best development houses, and BioWare has long been a huge influence on my work.

(Note I picked female Shepherd for the image above. Because FemShep is just better.)

People really care about this series. Perhaps a bit overmuch. If we as a people could give to real problems the same focus and energy we expended on arguing about the ME3 ending, the world would be a better place.

I played Mass Effect 1 and 2 obsessively. All side quests, all everything. I played Mass Effect 3 front to back (skipping a lot of the side quests, which sort of telegraphs how I felt about the experience), experienced the ending, and then watched the recently patched new endings on YouTube. There's a lot of good stuff here for game geeks to argue about, though, before I get too cranky about it, I wanted to say what I liked.

The Setting

I think the Mass Effect setting is one of the best in computer games. BioWare has this stuff down to a science. It was only when I was playing ME3 and revisited all the great conflicts in the series: Salarian vs. Krogan. Geth vs. Quarian. Humans vs. Everybody, that I really started to realize how much stuff there is. How complex and nuanced the issues facing the characters are. How interesting the setting is and how that, in turn, leads to interesting stories.

Between Mass Effect and Dragon Age, I personally think that BioWare is the best maker of computer game settings. I hope they keep doing it.

The Gameplay

Tight as a drum. Except for occasional problems finding walls my character could hide behind, the game plays well. It's fast paced, fun, and full of exploding things.

I do wish that there was more variety in what you could do. I desperately miss the vehicle sections in Mass Effect, which were great for breaking up gameplay. They had their problems, but, honestly, I think the game would be much better if those sections had been improved instead of dropped entirely.

The Ambition

The world of Mass Effect is a huge epic full of intractable conflicts. There were a lot of them left at the end of Mass Effect 2. The developers decided that, in ME3, they would all be settled. This makes the story of ME3 one of the most ambitious and far-reaching of any game I've ever played. It's a very generous gesture to players, a bit of fan-service to make sure that no lingering issues, even ones that could easily support a whole full game on their own, remained.

This choice was a little problematic in the execution. The ways these plots were settled felt a bit perfunctory. By the end of the game, there was no problem so enduring and thorny that it couldn't be solved by one guy fighting his way down two long corridors littered with chest-high walls. Still, the game wanted people to leave the series content, and it did its best to give the fans what they desired.

It's a great series. I hope these dialogue and story-rich single-player experiences still have a place in the gaming industry. I truly enjoyed it (especially the first two). I'm grateful to Bioware for making it and hope they keep making games like these.

Now that this is done, I have another article to write about the ending. I hope I can come up with something fresh to add to the countless gallons of virtual ink that have been spilled on the issue.

Quick Book Thought, Apropos Of Nothing

Have you ever noticed that there are some books that, when you carry them around, make people want to start conversations with you?


(The Stand was a big one for this. Also, The Man in the High Castle.) 


Why do I bring it up? 


Because I just started A Game of Thrones.