Game/music reporter extraordinaire Jeriaska posted a video of my Independent Game Summit talk on IndieGames.com. This is the first time any of my talks have slipped from the grip of the GDC lawyers to reach the public.
This talk relates to Marian in a couple ways: First there are a couple examples that reference experiences developing Marian, and secondly the entire development process of Marian is inspired by ideas of “storytelling” and holistic design.
This talk is actually a slimmed down version of one I gave back in September at Austin GDC. Originally this version was going to be just as long, but whoever organizes things over in GDC land ended up turning my slot into a 3-way talk with Adam Saltsman and Andy Schatz. Originally going to be an hour, it was cut to half an hour, then we were told it was going to be bumped up to 45 minutes at the last minute… When we finally delivered the talk, expecting it to be a 45 minute slot, we only ended up with about 35 minutes – unfortunately losing the end of our talk.
We were each going to wrap up our respective sections with a final message, and I think it’s a shame that we didn’t get the opportunity to do so… I’d like to post a rough paraphrasing of my coda here:
“Games are a vast, unexplored space – and this means not a single one of us knows all the right answers on design.
Find your own voice, explore your own creative process.
If it happens to be completely different than mine or Adam’s or Andy’s… or anyone else’s – that’s awesome. Experiencing vivid and diverse points of view is a beautiful thing.
I look forward to seeing what you all come up with!”
I’m really grateful to be in a position where I have the freedom to work on the projects that I want to – using the methods that I find most valuable. I also can’t wait til all you folks get to play the results! (hint: it’ll be quite a while yet)
Recently we purchased an HDTV for the purpose of testing “Marian” at various HD resolutions – but it also happened to be my first HDTV ever, so I was pretty anxious to see some of my games running at epic sizes.
The Latest Marian Prototype…
Back in the day when Derek and I were working on Aquaria (circa 2006), widescreen monitors weren’t a big deal. Everything was 4:3, and we designed the game accordingly. However, by the time the game was released in late 2007, 16:10 and 16:9 had caught on in a big way. We ended up releasing a major patch of the game that added full widescreen support – and it was a lot of work. Beyond the code changes, we had to create new artwork to extend the edges of certain scenes, edit all the levels so that the game wouldn’t spoil anything major, etc.
Aquaria: still sexy at 1080p/46”
Designing with multiple aspect ratios in mind from the start is a little bit tedious, but it definitely saves a lot of heartache down the road.
Today I’d like to explain another part of our prototyping process, something we call “Level Snippets”. Essentially they’re just little sketches of a piece of gameplay drawn up by Kyle, which I’ll implement in the engine to test out various core gameplay mechanics.
We’re only going to show you one of the most basic ideas that we’ve prototyped as an example right now, because we don’t want to give away any of the exciting stuff just yet. This doesn’t even scratch the surface. (in fact, this particular piece is a bit misleading, as “Marian” is not a traditional platforming game)
Once I get a sketch like this and we’ve talked about it a bit, I’ll get it up and running in Unity with some boxes to block it out. If there are reusable components, I’ll build them as prefabs. (in this case, platforms that fly in) Then all the work done for the small test level can be reused in larger areas!
We just got home from San Francisco, which involved a lot of good times as well as a fair amount of hard work on finding a good home for “Marian”. We brought a new, private trailer for developer friends, plus a few other interested parties – and it was a hit.
The trip also included the most epic TIGRadio episode to date: a two hour discussion featuring about a dozen indie developers. (including Phil Fish, Farbs, Petri, Kyle Pulver etc)
You can find the conversation archived here. If I remember correctly, it starts off a bit slow but gets into some pretty interesting game design territory eventually!
I’m back in the ‘peg – and it’s nice to be home… but I miss everyone already.
We’re down in San Fran for GDC! Due to the sheer amount of awesome hangouts, talk-planning and other insanity, we missed Monday’s Marian update.
Better late than never – here’s a picture of a little ancient photo album we put together to help us show off the art of the game…
Also check out Chrissy’s sexy GDC photos on Flickr… they’ll be updated at least once every day!
And if you’re down in SF, consider checking out my talk with fellow indie compatriots Adam Saltsman and Andy Schatz at 2:15pm on Wednesday. It should (hopefully) be entertaining and informative.
Recording a very short snippet of voice over for Marian… in our uber high tech recording studio. (Note the USB microphone, cardboard box and pantyhose stretched over a hanger…) We’re working on a trailer for our current prototype, which may or may not be seen publicly.
Big ups to Bog Logan for offering his time and his sultry tones.
(in fact, this particular piece is a bit misleading, as “Marian” is not a traditional platforming game)
