Ugly Baby Studios » Game Design Talk

The Learning Process: Art and Design, Part One

kelleyfrisby — Fri, 08 May 2009 07:13:44 +0000

So, hi! My name is Kelley Frisby, and I’m an unsuspecting victim in the indie game process (LOL). Truthfully, I’m a traditional artist who saw a unique and interesting challenge in front of her and jumped head first without thinking of all the obstacles I was about to come into contact with. When initially approached to join with Ugly Baby Studios and their premier game, Exhumed, I thought to myself, “Oh, no. I can’t do that. I draw cute things, girly things, things that parents read to their children before bed.” What do I know about zombies and video games? Not that much apparently, but it turns out I am a quick learner. I took my ridiculously expensive art school education and did some research.

I played House of the Dead at the arcade, I shot Rabbid bunnies with my boyfriend’s wii-mote, I remembered the secrets hidden in the pipes that I thought even Mario had forgot. I even took a few lessons from American McGee’s Alice and you know what all that did for me? Other than having a shit load of fun, it actually confused me more. I saw so many interesting concepts and styles that I truly admired.

But at the same time I was lost as to where to take the look of these zombies. So I went with what I DO know, and that’s composition and characters. I started small and reworked things. I went back to my traditional education and pulled out my art books. I took inspiration from the people who have always inspired me, Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, artists like Edward Gorey and Arthur Rackham…then I started really thinking about how the games look would be influenced by my artwork and I started brainstorming ways to keep this new and unique and yet creepy and zombie-ish.

For some odd reason I kept visualizing the old movie posters of the 40′s and seeing rockabilly girls and I thought: Pin Up Zombie! She was reworked many times, but ultimately the pieces fell into place…a few pieces even fell off, but we won’t discuss that now. I initially went with the idea that if I combined the look of the old zombie films with the popularity and attractiveness of the Pin Up girl that it would make for an interesting and fun look.

All this lead me to the main character we have now. That and the fact that the game’s Man in Charge, wanted an overall hand drawn look to the game that seems to be lost in today’s video game world. Not lost completely, I’m told, but few and far between. Looking through the games I’ve been playing recently I’d have to agree. So today, in my first of a few Behind the Scenes Exhumed pieces, I will showcase not only a few of my progress shots, but point out a few of the latest and greatest art styles I’m really enjoying right now.

As mentioned above, I am not primarily a gamer, I am not an expert on these things. I am still new, still learning, still discovering some of these stories and pictures for the first time. But my artist’s eye tells me a lot. While I can admire and respect the talent it takes to create some of these 3d masterpieces out there, I get so much more enjoyment out of some of the simpler designs. The designs and art styles that don’t seem like much but are really beautiful and inspiring in their simplicity.

Games like: World of Goo and Lost Winds have such a wonderful sense of style. I think a lot of people out there miss just how hard it is to sometimes keep things clean and simple, to not overload your viewer with every tiny detail. That’s a talent not many can boast: the ability to communicate with simplicity and elegance. Line work and subtlety, finding the perfect color palette; those aren’t just simple things to discover and create. Looking at the upcoming remake of A Boy and His Blob I would much rather get lost for hours in that game, where everything was created in a specific style for a made-up world, born of the imaginary. It’s what makes us lose ourselves in these games in the first place. They are not real life. We can lose ourselves in the imaginary and forget the reality of our everyday lives for a little while, and it’s the very rare artist who can achieve this far more difficult goal.

In the next part, we’ll showcase a step by step progression of the building up of a character concept for our game!

FPS ‘AI’ all ‘A’ and no ‘I’…

Mike Kukuk — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:38:13 +0000

FPS games try to create “Artificial Intelligence” but, in general, do a very lousy job of faking the experience. Although F.E.A.R. goes farther than most, the main concept is still “creating the illusion of intelligence” (via sound cues) not by actually making an intelligence simulation.

HALO

Halo did a fair job of of getting a bit closer, as even a tiny insect will exhibit a reaction of fear when threatened. In order to better fake an ‘AI’, one would need to analyze (and exhibit) many ‘intellect-like’ behaviors, including audio cues for behavior when the AI gets in a ‘buggy’ loop and begins acting odd (such as a shell shocked repeating of some funny phrase to at least add humor when stuck in a movement loop). After all, humans can forgive some very odd behavior, if it makes us laugh.

Fear
During Halo, It felt very real to players for the grunts to chicken out and run away, and it was also very funny. Anybody taking a few bullets would not ‘just keep coming’ when they were obviously losing – they would run or at least take cover. Retreating when hurt is not an unusual behavior; although – typical AI avoids this by always pressing on and making a direct path to the player (thereby piling up bodies, stupidly). Consider even a ‘small’ intellect (such as a bug) has more to do during a standard day than most of us believe, as the search for food can be time consuming, and require some thinking outside the box for a creative solution, which FPS ‘AI’ has no method of delivering. ‘AI’ does not ask questions, or arrive at conclusions based upon possibilities, it does not generally even review a few options (such as turning over stones or leaves to find food). It is strictly “if this = then that” in a chain of procedure, which, after a small amount of time appears very predictable – especially in a fight. GRAW, anyone?

One would think someone trying to simulate an ‘AI’ would at minimum study various wasps & spiders and their predatory natures. Maybe I am fighting military units, but all in all – the predatory aspects are what we are taking about, along with defensive, military or not. An AI might flank me, but again, – it never felt like they outsmarted me – it always feels like they can ‘see me’ through virtual walls…. because of the way it happened. Most AI these days might even take cover, maybe scratch their butts – but they fail in too many areas; behaviors which most animals and insects exhibit. Wikipedia, BTW, defines the ‘testing of intelligence’ (birds) as ‘based on studying the responses to sensory stimuli.’

Inter-communication
Many animals have predatory calls. That is – communication between 2 or more creatures to confuse prey, and let each other know what they are up to. Typical FPS games make the mistake of generating information only for the players sake, which tends to dampen realism. Although informative, and helping in gameplay, Half-life 2 did go some distance with this, (Hunters) but they did not carry it as far as it might be, as typical FPS’s use this in varied (if very limited) respects, although, more to warn players that there is an enemy, rather than to identify an enemy with intellect, and create fear in the player, due to feeling hunted themselves.

Distraction
Certain predatory birds (for example) use teamwork while hunting in pairs; and they have been observed as using a “bait and switch” technique, where one bird will distract the prey while the other moves in for the kill. What is missing in typical FPS games is the feeling like (we) the player are the prey when we go up against many enemies. Specifically, there is simply no current method to challenge an army (or platoon) solo without being superhuman, which would imply (realistically speaking) massive superiority (like godhood) or even cheating. So, typically, we will still feel like we are superior and that we are the predator. We do not get smart enemies to fear or dread, we instead get hulking 900 hit (do it exactly right!) arcade action bosses left over from Robotron, or some other 80′s arcade game. The other offer is of course, the typical onslaught of ‘bots numbering in the thousands, to generate some form of victorious feelings on our part in a ‘close up fight’. Yet, at some point, we may even ask ourselves if, after some improved physics and graphics, “what has really changed – beyond the first person perspective?”

Basically – the focus of the typical FPS game is so narrowly aimed at the ‘quick action payoff’, that any genuine “AI” gets bypassed for the sake of ‘action.’ There are no real tactics necessary, as quick pacing forces players to funnel through corridor rat mazes “to get the cheese” makes quick deaths of what might have been smart AI – so, ‘why bother?’ In other words – we instead receive 10,000 ‘AI’ bots that are dumb as a rock in an steady onslaught, (which makes them seem difficult and challenging, i.e. – ‘smart’) instead of 20 tactical brains that made us really think our way through a fight, and even derive some benefit aside from a spastic wrist.

In some Bad Company

Mike Kukuk — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:51:10 +0000

A moderate review of Bad Company, and critique of current FPS’s.

When I first started playing single player Bad Company, I suppose I was really looking for something a bit more… innovative, which it is not. It offers modern physics and real world destruction, but the plot remains not too different from an old Soldier of Fortune (+ 5 other games, & stir) rehash with some buddies (COD2, anyone?). About 1/2 the game is fighting in small towns, with some forays using vehicles, like a boat. Then come obligatory ‘change it up because it’s getting boring’ tank level, ‘helicopter level’, ‘no buddies level, etc.
Lets not forget the oh-so-typical boss battle at the end, which in my opinion IS a direct rip from Soldier of Fortune Double Helix.

There are many things in Bad Company that are standard in FPS games nowadays; vehicles, swapping weapons, outdoor areas, etc. This does add to the ‘do it your way factor’, which was innovative with Halo…. like the vehicles (because it was done well). Outdoors FPS games has already been (the ‘no corridor’ aspect) done well with Far Cry… so, how to innovate? I mean to say – why do developers always fall back upon platforming and arcade games of old instead of coming up with new ideas? Just rehashing some old methods for an FPS does not make a great game, it does refine a good game, which is what Bad Company really is – refined.

I suppose jumping, repetitive bot onslaughts and boss battles (COD4!) are what many FPS games are made of – but, play that a few times, and you have seen it all before. Half-life 2 made tremendous leaps in innovation, and ‘thinking out of the FPS box’, doing traps, gravity gun, physics puzzles, odd enemies… just too many things to mention that innovated the genre. This makes many games coming after that… well, wanna-bees or copycats…. merely due to a lack of innovation.

The challenge of course, is finding new ways to making running/driving/boating/flying & shooting fun, keeping the action moving (not everyone wants to use their brain, apparently) and pushing the plot forward (assuming that there is one).

Examples of cheap FPS tricks.
Spawning a bot in your face (GRAW!)
Hidden enemy that is revealed suddenly (like a tank in a garage, Bad Company!)
Platforming – jumping onto crates, maybe falling to your death (Half-Life!)
Boss battles, like helicopters or giant monsters (Painkiller)
Bot onslaughts in place of better or decent AI (COD4)

While it might be more challenging to have a tank with the ability to be able to see me through any walls, it certainly isn’t FAIR. This makes flanking pointless, because the tank ALWAYS knows where I am. So does any other crappy AI that can see through walls. My criticism of FPS games boils down to AI. Want a better game? Make better AI. AI that can’t always see me, and doesn’t always know where I am. Halo had that. Where did it go? Many modern games offer flanking, but the bots can see through walls even at a massive distance. That is called Cheating. (GRAW, I am talking to you and your crappy Co-op bot battles.) At minimum, in GRAW they are predictable in spawning behind you – example: they will ALWAYS be ‘to the left’ if you turn your view/scope right, (or the opposite) and they will consistently dodge your targeting scope like caffeinated squirrels, magically knowing you are zooming in on their tiny heads. (But, hey. I digress from the ‘great game play’. Ugh.)

Bad Company (single player) handles this aspect with distance. The AI can typically only recognize you at a certain distance, as you need to start shooting first when farther away, in order for them to start shooting back. Close up – well, they will often engage first. What has always puzzled me has been the idea of ‘smarter AI vs. more AI’. More AI implies dumber bots to keep the action moving, (i.e. – “harder” and maybe have more health) because they are in reality, still just cannon fodder. Smarter bots would require some effort to get past, and just a few of them doing smart things (as opposed to seeing through walls!) would provide the challenge, not unlike a chess game with guns. Ok – maybe it is tough to be a hero unless you ‘fight an army’… but the victories are pretty damn hollow after awhile. I suppose one way to ramp up the intensity is to choke all human thought. Fine.

Any realistic ‘human’ AI has foibles. What I mean by this is humans screw up and blow it fairly often in life. So, I should be able to set up a (non-scripted) distraction and STEAL that tank instead of it always killing me, but I can’t – because it IS a bot, not ‘has one inside’. What I really see missing from the modern FPS is tactics. Instead, it is always an onslaught to force constant action, i.e – ‘excitement’. So. It’s me against 5 platoons. Me against 9 tanks. Me against the ‘super helicopter’. How come the helicopter ALWAYS knows where I am??? In every game? No, he doesn’t have x-ray vision, it’s just a scripted cheat. Most FPS games try to deliver the ‘visceral’ aspect by showing gore, not by giving tactics that really cause you to you feel as though you actually ‘outwitted’ the bot. It’s always the same – win by failure and repeatedly dying, unpleasant not because of mistakes, but because it was scripted to play that way – their way….‘the right way’. Too many developers fall back upon this, and it’s a cheap shot. Especially when there was so much ‘freeform action’ promised instead of a railroad to sufferville. At the end of ‘the great game’ I always feel like Pavlov’s dog… only with a game controller in one paw.

Exploring online ——————

The online portion of Bad Company at least addresses this problem (barring the many deaths you will experience there. I mean, it IS battlefield!) to some degree with team play, and a lack of brainless “Yawn. I’m just standing here waiting for a bullet in my skull” AI. Granted, I have long since tired of hearing people whine into the microphone about something they feel I should have done differently, but they did not see what I experienced (spawn sniper, etc.) and, there is no way to quickly explain it. While I have seen some interesting tactics that people useI have seen major cheats too – like the damn spawn killers at a main base. The radar appears to work like Halo’s, i.e. – you drop off of it when you stop moving; and snipers generally have to deploy ‘motion sensors’ in order for the small overhead map to really be effective.

There are basically 5 kits to play with, including specialized unlocks, which do not unbalance the game (kudos here) but do extend play in each class: (unlocks will arrive as you play)
Assault (semi auto rifle with grenade launcher)
Specialist (silent semi auto, grenade, and tagging device for tagging vehicles)
Demolition (shotgun, RPG which can ‘home in’ with tagging)
Recon (sniper rifle, motion sensor, pistol)
Support (SAW, med packs, vehicle repair ‘drill’)

One interesting tactic has been far flanking by snipers who use the ‘not on map aspect’ to their advantage, by creeping up the map and then facing the other way in a bush. Unless they are marked red on the map, you often don’t even know they are shooting your guys, because they are facing the opposite direction; and at a distance, sometimes it is hard to tell what’s what, and who is shooting what. Although, it must be said – some folks (like myself) shoot because we don’t see blue. Sometimes… that lag means team kills. The info is often just milliseconds too late, as team names can pop up slow. So, in a game as well balanced as Bad Company, lag can ruin any chances a good player has, and screw up play something serious.

I would add a lot concerning ‘team spawning’ too – because it sucks, and is a cheap way to die. IF you don’t have an awesome ping, you always get fragged; because there is such a thing as “spawn on your squad”. This basically means: Wherever you are, three other players (from a ‘side’ of 12, i.e – 3 sets of 4 – as it is a 12 against 12 battle) will spawn in with you (next to) when the timer allows.

What often happens in game is that you might just get that ‘close up and personal’ kill, and the game cheaply steals it by having the 3 teammates of the player you just killed spawn in (typically behind you) and finish you off, depending on where you were standing. No one can reload THAT fast – so, that’s a real rip off. And, depending on your ping – it really makes a difference on who gets the drop on who, because games are typically laggy, as EA servers are Laggy. I cannot emphasize this enough. This becomes all too apparent when you can watch someone else (at their home) who has great ping (and a lessor player than yourself) get kill after kill after kill, seemingly without any effort.

Since you will often have 3 guys ‘spawn in’ on you (a squad is made of 4) inversely, if you are a sniper up in a tower, and your teammates are not, and the action is some distance away, they will spawn in your face, (as players can either chose spawn at the ‘main base’ or spawn with team = ‘squad’) and maybe they will be pissed because you are at the top of that tower, and far from the main battle. Enough for a team kill. Talk about needing some work!

Then, other BC games can play great without any problems whatsoever, despite no players communicating at all. A friend of mine (for example), sometimes spawns as a sniper and then snags a different kit, like a specialist, using the cover it affords for close up sneaky work. Another favorite trick has been to steal an enemy tank (or whatever!) and use it against them, as it is not always identified as an enemy until it is too late. However, that tactic can get you killed by either team.

It is an intense game – too frantic, as frantic is all there is. There is really very little team cooperation, as everyone typically picks what they want (read: are good at) and starts killing and trying to take the base/’gold crates’, and there is not that much strategy in any typical game I have seen. Do squad leaders discuss strategy? Never! More like ‘team based death match’! And the whining about choices you might make that squad members may not like?

Damn! I finally disconnected my headset.

UT2007 Modding

gustavo — Sun, 22 May 2005 00:29:24 +0000

I spent a short time talking with James Brown, Lead level designer for Epic Games about MOD’ing using the Unreal Engine 3.0. The main question on my mind was how easy it will be to convert a UT2004 MOD to the UT2007 Framework. His response was that it is very difficult because they have changed the core of the engine, but it still can be done. On the bright side, the engine supports weapon models with 1000 to 3000 polygons, an incredible increase from Unreal engine 2.0′s support for weapons with only 300 to 600 polygons.More information will be forthcoming as I continue to talk with Mr. Brown in the near future.

Unreal Tournament 2007 Announced!

Jason Ward — Tue, 10 May 2005 09:49:31 +0000

Source: BeyondUnreal

The long-discussed Unreal Engine 3 based game, formerly codenamed “Envy” by Epic Games, has now been officially announced and will be showing behind closed doors at E3 later this month. From the screenshots posted today (some of which are reposts) the game looks to be one of the most gorgeous of the upcoming generation, certainly looking to appeal to those for whom eye-candy is everything.

According to the article, UT2007 will not be in any way an extension of the UT2003/4 codebase but is an entirely new game built from scratch on the new engine. It should feature numerous new vehicles, possibly with destructible components, 8 team support and numerous new gametypes.