So I packed up and moved to Nova Scotia where I now work for HB Studios.  I’m not sure what this means for my little mod projects, but it certainly isn’t speeding them up.  My days are usually pretty full as it is, but I have to admit I recently saw some of the screens and videos I’ve done and it made me want to get back into them.  For now though they’ll stay where they are.

I might write some posts about games though, I have been playing quite a few of them lately.

The time to reflect on part three is upon us.  I had predicted that this section would get completed much faster than the previous one, the type of prediction that usually curses a project.  In most ways it did go faster than the previous level, even though the overall time I put in was probably more.  This level is both larger and more complex, so my previous experience helped keep development from getting out of hand (I will talk a little about that later).

I have to admit that it wasn’t as smooth as I had originally hoped though.  Most of this is due to SunkenTemple tileset, which comprises most of the level.  I thought the transition to this tileset was going to be a straightforward as was to move from the Crypt set to the Cave one.  It didn’t really work out that way.

The original plan for the Jungle and Village, with the ending incomplete.

The first problem is how the floor tiles fit together.  The trim pieces for the Cave set are really simple to work with and I had gotten used to planning a level with those pieces in mind.  The SunkenTemple ones do not fit the same way, so the first parts of the plan I made could not be perfectly recreated.  The second problem is that the floor pieces are poorly organized, so not all of them show up when “floor” is checked in the editor palette.  I also recall some pieces not having a collision mesh assigned to them when I started.  These are the type of little things that add up to a larger pain and it slowed me down near the beginning.

Overview of the final level, much different from the last one.

There are other irritating things about how the walls fit together (which are organized in full, half, and quarter sizes) that make transition not as smooth as I would have wanted.  This complaint may have been amplified by some of the things I did with the walls, so I could have made it a bit easier on myself.  My last complaint (getting too ranty here) is that the diagonal walls don’t display correctly on the map, instead it shows the opposite diagonal which makes the map look terrible.  I’m still looking for a fix, but I don’t know if I’ll find one before I finish the dungeon.

A closer look at the Jungle Shrine area.

I mentioned before about keeping development from getting out of hand, this mostly concerns the organization of the level.  Well labelled groups are a must when making a layout of this size.  I have dozens of them breaking the level down into areas (8 of them) and type of piece.  Since the editor does not have a way of locking a group like one would in photoshop, it pays to have everything properly organized so that visibility can be toggled.  It is also very helpful when cleaning up the map to have pieces split into groups that will or won’t show on the map.  I had organized the Crypt and Cave sections with groups before, but it took much more to keep from getting lost in this level.

So I am moving on to designing the last section of the dungeon.  I only hope that this one hasn’t gotten too large, the load time in the editor is getting a little long.  Still, it is worth it because the result looks really good.  I have also been updating my progress on the Runic forums little by little, so check that out for additional screenshots.  I will make a gallery on this site soon so that there is a more complete collection.  Finally, here is one of the videos I uploaded to my Torchlight Development Playlist on YouTube for this level:

I was also able to put the planning stages to better use during this section of the dungeon.  The cave section started out as an incredibly small sketch, one that I hadn’t given very much thought to when dreaming up the overall dungeon.  I had expected it to not be much longer than the crypt section, mostly just a way to get to the outside areas of the level.  It turned out to be much more.

The original sketch. There is more there than there appears to be.

So starting with the very rough sketch I brought out the graph paper and elaborated on the general shape I had drawn.  I left out the enemy, lights, and sounds details that were shown on the crypt plans.  This allowed me to concentrate on the basic layout and the key moments I already had in mind.  It ended up being split up into three sections; the lower, mid and upper cave.

The entire crypt/cave plan.

After the sections were drawn out and the basic floor and wall tiles had been placed I was left with quite a bit more room than I had originally intended.  So I went through the level and planned out each area in a little more detail in order to keep it interesting all the way through the level.  As I needed to do more planning I went back to the diagrams I had created and sketched in what I wanted to add. (Like secrets!)

The Lower Cave plan overlaid on the actual level.

Details like lights and sounds still haven’t been put on the plans and probably won’t in the future either because there are so many of them.  As the level develops these details are added as I see fit and do not provide any useful information when on the plan.  The crypt/cave section of the level is nearly complete, but needs enemies.  These will be added to the plans because that helps to properly space them and give the level a certain amount of balance.  After that I will be starting the next floor of the dungeon, which takes place outside of the cave.

To see the level in action check out my YouTube page or the player below.  The cave section is spread across three videos.

So after a couple video tutorials and some plain old messing around I cobbled together a sketch of a level idea and dove in.  These short blog entries will briefly chronicle my progress over the next little while; I don’t expect this level to take too long to create.  I don’t plan on doing any sort of TorchED tutorial posts, these are more of a development diary for the mod.  Posted after the break are the plans and screenshots for the first section of the level.

Layout plan for the Crypt section of the level.

For each section of the level (I suppose I should be saying dungeon) I first draw up a diagram of the layout.  This one was fudged a bit, since I had already built part of the level before deciding on the rest, but it follows the same organization as the other plans.  Blue tiles are water, green areas spawn enemies, orange (kind of) boxes are triggers, red circles are lights, and yellow circles are sounds.  Some objects come with lights and sounds attached to them, but additional ones are added as needed.

The first section of the level is crypt-themed and is very short.  It is the first of four main sections: the crypt, cave, forest, and mansion.  Each of these are subdivided for organization purposes and will be detailed more when I get to those sections.

The crypt section in TorchED.

My custom level isn’t that similar to how levels are done in the actual Torchlight game.  In Torchlight dungeons are composed of premade chunks that are semi-randomly pieced together based on their connection points.  Each chunk is developed within a single theme (as far as I can tell) so that when they are pieced together the look is consistent.  Each section of my level is making use of pieces from more than one theme and is meant to be traversed in a particular order.  There are some levels in Torchlight that are created in this manner, but not all of them.

I don’t have too much more to say about this section since it is so short, but below is a video of the crypt section in a fairly complete stage of development.  I have the cave section sketched out already, so that update should come fairly quickly despite it being much larger and more complicated.  Being more accustomed to the editor helps as well!

Alright, well it’s been just over a week since the final version of my paper was submitted for grading.  With the end in sight, I suppose it is time for another update.  This update does presume some familiarity with the project, so reading the previous update and the project page is recommended.

The testing went reasonably well, many participants who played through the demonstration preferred the adaptive music to a more traditional passive approach.  The application also ran correctly in all cases; the adaptive music was consistently successful at matching game events with specific elements of the music.  The seamless transitions between sections of the music appeared to go unnoticed by the participants (as they should, since they are supposed to be seamless) and there were a wide range of positive responses to this.

Still, the testing revealed some weaknesses in the testing process.  Many revolved around the questionnaire, which had questions that may have unintentionally biased some participants and others that could have been more direct.  The possible bias was taken into consideration when writing the project’s conclusions and that participants could have been biased in either direction depending on how they interpreted the labels of the musical implementations.  Other questions, which were looking for participants to acknowledge the synchronization of game events with the music were too vague and received suitably vague responses.

These problems meant that the more useful results from the testing were drawn from the conversations with participants following the hands-on demonstration and questionnaire.  Some people found it much easier to describe verbally what they felt the difference between the two musical implementations was.  These results were more interesting.

The final pdf! Gotta love LaTeX.

For instance, although few people wrote about the connection between the colour changes (game events) and the music, most participants noticed it.  Many did not think to include it in their answer based on the wording of the questions.  These responses also reinforced the positive reaction to the adaptive music, whether or not the participants were aware of what the difference was.  It seemed that since the events were playing out during the music that was designed for them, participants felt some sort of subconscious enhancement to the game.  Some felt it was “faster”, “more fun”, and “more epic”.  So although they weren’t the expected responses, which may have been too technical in nature, these answers which concerned a more intangible feeling were valuable.

The colour changing events may have also been too similar to the player’s goal, which was to change the colour of the “goal cubes”, although this was never mentioned by a participant.  More variety, or no goal cubes, could have brought more attention to the connection between the events and music.

Anyway, the rest of the conclusions are in the paper and are too much to review here.  I have to make more changes to the project page to outline the project more clearly.  A great deal of future directions were proposed at the end of the paper, so those will be included as well.  Now, to wait for a response to my submission.

This website was created specifically to show off my own work and since my current project is my Master’s Dissertation, I decided that it was about time that I wrote an update.  I have been making small updates to the official dissertation page, but that mostly discusses what the project idea is about.  It has come time to give an update of the project’s actual progress.  For information about the goal of the project check out the aforementioned page, because I won’t be going over that type of thing here.

The first thing to note is that controlling the music and changing game objects based on the musical events are both working features right now.  The examples I have running are extremely simple, but more will come.  The first screenshot, shown above, shows the early level example.  The goal cubes are used to motivate the player through the level, changing the colour of each one by touching it.  The visual style is obviously minimalistic, and won’t be changing significantly, but it is all that is needed to demonstrate the project’s goal.

Variables for testing are shown in the top left corner.

The look is simple but I have a couple key moments planned.  In the screenshot above there is a lit and unlit “goal cube” leading up to the large pillars.  More important are the variables shown.  The camera position is monitored so that the soundtrack can be advanced as the player moves further through the level.  Also shown is the most recent marker passed in the song, both its number (#1) and name (Second), which don’t make sense beside each other.  More descriptive ones will be needed for the final audio.

The last variable in this screenshot is “Chosen”, which indicates whether or not the program has chosen to loop one section of the music based on the players position.  Currently it has not, because the camera’s Z position has not moved past 50, at which point it will loop between music markers 2 and 3 as opposed to playing the whole song.  Simple, and annoying in practice, but good for demonstrating that these parts of the program are working properly.

Expanding the level; this section will be timed with the music.

The final screenshot is of the current setup, meaning the last screenshot I will take before I go eat lunch.  With the music stuff working in an early fashion, I went to work trying to do something more interesting with the visual style.  This is what I had after a couple minutes and I don’t think it looks too shabby.  Plus, the archway changes colour as the music triggers events!  Still not as interesting and complete as the project needs to be, but it is progress.

I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the original Unreal Tournament.  There is something about the original’s unbridled ass-whoopn’ that has never quite been matched by any other game.  The game was violent, blunt, and unforgiving.  The arenas were rough and dark, abandoned structures given a second life as the perfect places to watch competitors fight for their own.

The games that followed (2003, 2004, III, and Championship 1 and 2) never retained that feeling.  The environments became overly intricate, even delicate looking in some instances.  The players went from simply dodging to flipping and twirling off walls.  These are supposed to be hardened warriors, not ballerinas!  Nevertheless, these games have added some great things to the series and still provide a fun, competitive gaming experience despite how far they have strayed from the original game.

Even with the series’ advancements there is one thing, or rather a collection of things, that the Tournament has never gotten: a true sports game treatment.

The original trophy, like the Stanley Cup's evil twin.

For those who haven’t played the original game, Unreal Tournament is a bloodsport tournament conceived as the result of the conflicts that happen in the single-player Unreal games.  In the original the “story” section of the game involved fighting through each of the maps and working your way up the ladder of game types.  Game types included Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Domination, and Assault.  In the team games you play for the faction of your choice.  As the player completed every map in each game type they were award a trophy, which culminated in a final one-on-one fight and the championship trophy.

It was a simple tournament structure that was used to hold together what was primarily a multiplayer experience.  The structure was slightly enhanced in the 2003/2004 editions so that teammates could be added by the player as the team grew for the bigger game types, such as Bombing Run and Onslaught.  These two installments brought along other changes as well, such as vehicles.

For Unreal Tournament 3 the structure of the “Tournament” was changed completely to resemble a war campaign.  Events like Capture the Flag were somewhat rationalized by saying that the flags were key to the enemy being allowed to respawn soldiers, so they must be stolen to win the battle.  Cutscenes were used to tie the story together and missions are selected on a large map, indicating that there is a larger battle going on.  Although the core game was still reasonably fun, this type of story was never needed and wasn’t all that great.

Throughout all of this time the Unreal Tournament series has never capitalized on the fact that is, at its core, a bloodsport.  UT started out by following in the footsteps of Quake’s multiplayer and gathered a dedicated online following over the years, including some sports-like competition.  This following includes all of the game types that have been added and each seems to spawn its own techniques and specialists.

Lately Unreal Tournament doesn’t attract the same following as it used to.  I’m not talking directly about sales, but about the game’s presence on gaming league sites like Major League Gaming and the Team Warfare League.  In these online communities it has very little presence while a game like Left 4 Dead has its own seasons and ladders.  L4D is a great game, but one might think it is at a disadvantage in terms of online competition, especially next to a game with “tournament” in the title.  This is where the Unreal Tournament series has to push its potential to the limits.

Making it to the end of a game has always been a significant milestone.  Many early arcade games didn’t even have “endings”.  They were often a constant barrage of harder levels until the player finally succumbed to the difficulty and hopefully got their name on the high score sheet.   Most older console games didn’t have the ability to save your progress and provided a limited amount of lives.  So even if a game had a story, getting to the end in single session was challenging, to say the least.

In the time since then gaming has made many changes, including saving, checkpoints, difficulty levels and regenerating health, that have made it somewhat easier to reach a game’s conclusion.  With the popularity of multiplayer, some stories are also getting shorter as more development time is spent focusing on online features.  Some game still make it difficult.  Fallout 3, Oblivion, Far Cry, and now Dragon Age all push the length of a single player story to the extremes.  But the point of this article is not to talk about how the difficulty of games has changed.

The point is that reaching the end of a game usually takes a certain amount of dedication from the player and it should be a momentous occasion. Unfortunately, sometimes it is not.  An unsatisfying ending can really tarnish an otherwise good game.  So I’m going to take some time to jot down my thoughts on what a good ending should have.

It is difficult to nail down what makes the end of game great, but I think it should have three things: a conclusion to the story, a culmination of the player’s skills, and it must feel more significant than the previous game events.

A conclusion to the story is probably a no-brainer.  Any good story has a proper resolution that leaves the player (reader, listener, viewer) satisfied and hopefully without too many questions.  It is important to note that a satisfied player is not always completely happy at the ending.  A significant character may die leaving the player unhappy, but that does not mean that the story cannot reach a proper conclusion in this manner.  The exceptions are games that end with a cliffhanger, usually alluding to a sequel.  This can be done properly by wrapping up significant short-term conflicts so that they player still has a sense of accomplishment.  I feel games such as Half-Life, God of War II, and Assassin’s Creed have done this quite well in the past.

A game should not finish by teasing a sequel if there is not guaranteed to be one in the foreseeable future.  Especially if the game is terrific.  I’m looking at you Beyond Good and Evil.  (I know the sequel has be teased yet again, but I’ll only be happy when I’m actually playing it.)

Teasing unconfirmed sequels is torture.

The second was the culmination of the player’s skills.  Often over the course of a game the player gains more abilities.  This type of development should be capitalized on during the final sections of a game.  A challenging finale will test the players skills and be more rewarding because of it.

Finally, it should feel more significant than any other point in the game, or at least on par with the best.  Nothing is worse than having a game get the player excited for the big ending only to have it be underwhelming.

With these points in mind, lets head to some of the more disappointing endings and final bosses I have experienced in recent years.

It is important to know that I am a big fan of Harmonix and my music gaming platform (yes, platform) of choice is the Rock Band series.  I have also played several of the post-Harmonix Guitar Hero games, but they just don’t provide the same level of enjoyment for me.  It is also important to know that as much as I have enjoyed these types of rhythm games, there is no doubt in my mind that the video game market is seeing a few too many of them right now.

I also haven’t played DJ Hero.

So then why am I writing about DJ Hero?  I am writing because of all of the new music titles being released since The Beatles: Rock Band, this is the most interesting idea.

I play Rock Band primarily for the group atmosphere.  I play with people who enjoy rock music and love it loud.  Some of these people play instruments, some of these people play video games, and some don’t normally do either.  The group dynamic is just too good to not draw people in, even if they aren’t familiar with the music.

One problem is that at some parties rock music just doesn’t fit.  The music in DJ Hero is able to appeal to a completely different group of genres, ones that are often better to dance to.  This is the primary reason why I support the idea of DJ Hero.  You could have people playing the game, or even battling 1 on 1, and people just might feel like dancing.  This happens in Rock Band too, but it seems like there is even more potential in DJ Hero.

A party game that people could play a dance-type party.  It seems like an odd idea.  If a video game is being played at a good party, it is probably the main focus of the party.  DJ Hero could be more than that though, both a game and the actual DJ of the party.  Maybe I’m way off here, but this type of concept gives DJ Hero a additional type of appeal.

Although I don’t follow many of the artists in DJ Hero, I support the game soundtrack  because of the quality and variety the game provides.  It has great artists; Grandmaster Flash, 2Pac, Public Enemy, Queen, Marvin Gaye… they simply did a great job selecting the artists, even though there are a bunch I don’t listen to.  Plus, the combination of songs create some really interesting tracks.  Personally, hearing the music is probably the biggest draw the game has.

Bittersweet Symphony mixed with All Eyez on Me? Yes please.

Still, I won’t buy it.  The main reason is price.  I have paid a fair amount for games and their peripherals, but the trade off was getting to play with a group of friends.  This doesn’t have that advantage and I highly doubt anyone I know would ever want to purchase it as well.  I just don’t think I would have enough fun playing by myself to justify the purchase.

It sounds odd, but the other reason is the music.  As good as the soundtrack is, I still prefer the growing collection of music on Rock Band.  It is more likely that I would pick up an official soundtrack if they released one.  I would still like to be able to listen to it, but without the enormous price tag.

I must reiterate that I haven’t played the game yet, so maybe the gameplay would change my mind.  If that manages to happen, I will definitely post an update.  Even though I don’t believe this game is for me, I believe the idea is worth supporting.  DJ Hero is the biggest chance the rhythm game genre has taken since Rock Band (which seemed like a sure thing to me) and I hope it has enough success that developers in this area aren’t discouraged from trying new ideas.

Additional Links
Official DJ Hero Website
DJ Hero on Metacritic

Was NHL 09 the best sports game of 2008? I hope not.

This story was originally written in July of 2009 for a video game blog idea that has not become a reality at this point in time.  Rather than leave it in limbo, I thought it would be a decent first post on my personal blog.  Stay tuned for another NHL story talking about how NHL10 met or didn’t meet my expectations.

Ever since the release of NHL 09 I have had a confusing opinion of it. On the one hand I have played countless hours of the game, but at some points I don’t know that I’ve hated a game more. Normally this wouldn’t be that significant, but the fact that the game won 12 Sports Game of the Year awards leads me to believe that some publications are letting some things slide that I simply cannot stand. So I decided that I finally have to write this down before NHL 10 hits the shelves and hopefully corrects all the points that have been driving me crazy.

I want to emphasize that I do actually enjoy this game and I do feel that there are areas where this series has been making good progress. Despite my rantings, there is a very good game here.

My favourite aspect of NHL 09 is that I feel like I have total control over whether or not I get penalties. Moves such as hitting, hooking, poke checking and stick lifting are powerful but come with risks. This forces the player to weigh each move and assess the risk vs. reward. Penalties are often deserved, where in older games they felt much more random. The exceptions are interference calls which pop up too often in front of the net because of the shot/hit stick combination.

Be a Pro was one of the other big features of NHL 09 and it was something else I really enjoyed about the game. The camera helped set this mode apart and having to follow a coach’s orders provided a fresh perspective in a team sports game. Even a little thing like having to sit your player on the bench (though I kept playing with teammates) made the experience interesting.

There are other reasons to enjoy NHL 09, but I’m here to explain why I don’t think this game should have won any Sports GoTY awards. My biggest problems with the game lie in the basics: skating, passing and shooting. Some of these issues have been improved since they patched the game, but essentials like these should be ironed out well before a sports game’s release.

The irritating skating issue is the short player freezing. Every couple of games it pops up, usually at the most inopportune time, where the player doesn’t respond at all for a second or two. Inconvenient at the least, horrible flaw when playing against a friend or for the cup.

Meanwhile, the passing mechanic in NHL 09 often seems to think it should be making all of the passing choices for me. It took quite a while for me to understand, and learn to work with, what this game thinks is a good pass. The game loves to attempt impossible passes off of the boards behind the goal and at times I’ve even seen my player pass in the opposite direction that I intended.

Shooting is the least problematic, but mostly because of the game being patched. When the game was released I recall scoring very difficult goals quite often, I would score in the top right hand corner from the left side of the blue line at least once a game. Meanwhile players less than a foot from an open net would be missing the net by more than three feet. I guess that fault was just so obvious that it had to be fixed.

There are a handful of other things that bug me, but the essential nature of those previous three problems makes them stand out. Among my other gripes are goalies that make ridiculous choices and teammates that only serve to hurt the team. It is more than a little annoying when an AI controlled player decides to hook the other team while I’m on a break away. Also, do goalie ratings mean anything? Ditching Martin Brodeur and Marc-Andre Fleury for Devan Dubnyk because he actually makes saves doesn’t make any sense according to the ratings system.

I’m hoping they clean out some of these imperfections this fall with NHL 10. My only worry is that polishing these aspects will get lost under the new features, some of which I’m really excited for. Interactions after the whistle means I will probably have to stop running everyone over for fun, but will be worth it to see how you can affect the opposition with your taunts. Board play may also be a great addition, since that was one of my personal weaknesses in 09. Finally, Be a GM could be the statistics heaven I have always wanted.

In the end, maybe I just didn’t play enough of the other sports games that came out this past year and NHL 09 truly was the best of the bunch. I’m just hoping that not all of the sports games of ‘09 had this many faults. Problems with the basics of gameplay affect the experience whether you are playing pickup, in an online league, or in Be a Pro. Then again it could be that I feel too strongly that problems with basic gameplay shouldn’t be overlooked in favour of the big name features.