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March 28, 2009
GDC Post 1: Design Sessions
Rather than do an enormous post about all the things I saw at GDC (like last year's post), I thought I'd break this up into a few talks basically by discipline. First up, the design sessions I attended.
It's interesting to note that in the past, for the most part I attended no programming or art sessions whatsoever, but this year I actually mixed it up quite a bit. Last year I think I may have been more interested in design simply because I was doing some of my own design, though it has been a trend for years. Programming talks tend to be less interesting to me simply because I'm in the trenches with that stuff all the time -- and art stuff is just out of my area.
Satoru Iwata's Nintendo Keynote
There were a lot of great things in Nintendo President Iwata's talk, but for me the most interesting thing was the distinction he made between the "downward spiral" many game companies face and the "upward spiral" Miyamoto's process brings. In the downward spiral, financial pressure leads to shipping early, which leads to poorer quality, which leads to poorer scores and lowered revenue. Miyamoto, instead, sees ideas everywhere and keeps teams very very small while he prototypes: this relieves financial pressure, giving them time to find the fun, which leads to better reviews and better results.
There were some announcements of new games and improvements with the latest system software, but for me the biggest insight was that above. There were a couple of announcements of games (including a new Zelda title, which I will of course buy), and attendees got a free copy of Rhythm Heaven.
East Meets West
Unfortunately, this year I had to skip out on Clint Hocking's talk, which I always really enjoy, and attended instead a panel with an American designer (Emil Pagliarulo, of Bethesda Softworks, where I now work), and two Japanese designers (Suda51, of Killer 7 and No More Heroes fame, and Fumito Ueda, of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus). These were all designers whose games I've played a ton, consuming everything each has contributed to, so this was a great talk to see.
Despite some translation issues (although they make an effort, I think perhaps development talk is too specialized for the translators we have at GDC to be particularly effective), I picked up a few observations from listening to the speakers. Culturally, Japanese developers seem to follow more of an auteur theory, with the primacy of a single designer, who tends to follow his instincts and promote a shared vision of the game that starts with him, whereas Westerners tend to value feedback and individual contribution, with more of a tension between the designer's instincts and back-and-forth with the team as a whole.
Another minor note: Ueda pointed out that he tends not to use conversation or dialogue in his games because it requires repetition to convey information to the player, which breaks the realism of the conversation itself. Since these two can't be brought into harmony, he just designs conversation out.
Stop Wasting My Time and Your Money
Last year, I particularly enjoyed Margaret Robertson's talk Treat Me Like a Lover. Apparently she must have gotten quite a lot of good feedback, because this year, she got a prime spot mid-Thursday rather than Friday morning at 9 am. This year, Robertson talked about big stories in games and how we don't need them. Progressing from the most compressed story ever written (Hemingway's six word story) to little stories in art (in the Tate Museum) and audio, she talked about how smaller ways of telling stories are a good production solution because they are far more flexible -- if your mission structure has to change, you don't have to record a bunch of new voice lines to cover the bits of stories that were taken out. She also railed against "save the world" stories -- we have saved the world hundreds of times, perhaps we can focus on something else now? On the whole, a thought-provoking topic, reinforcing just how hard it is to do a good story, as well as lots of little ways you can tell little stories well -- and making me hold our own story guys at Bethesda in very high regard indeed.
My First Time
Well, not my first time, but a Game Design Challenge presented by Eric Zimmerman that focused on sex and autobiography as themes. The big surprise was that Kim Swift of Portal fame was not permitted to participate by Valve (which I think they'll come to regret -- it's never good to censor your people). But a couple of latecomers actually managed not only to come up with a design in 36 hours, but to win! Of the three, I think Haro's was my favorite, since he actually implemented something and since it appeared to work very well, but all three presented interesting designs. I love this part of the conference every year, because it tends to showcase real games that you could actually make that are far off the beaten path. Terrific stuff.
Experimental Gameplay Sessions
Jon Blow's Experimental Gameplay Sessions are always interesting and intriguing; regrettably, I was only able to stay for the first hour this year. The first hour focused mostly on different ways of looking at spaces, with a first person game in which the user can paint a white environment with black paint to reveal the world beneath, a platformer which ran around on shadows, and a crazy four-dimensional exploration game. There were a lot of interesting games here, some really thought-provoking. I particularly enjoyed the lots of little games presented by the designer of Fate. Look for notes online on this talk and make sure you play them, these guys are really pushing innovation, and gamers who enjoy something new should get a look at their efforts.
Posted by Brett Douville at March 28, 2009 11:09 AM
Comments
It's an accurate observation about your Japanese designers, if they follow the traditional patterns of other masters of Japanese craft. I know the master potter whose workshop I was honored to attend mentioned that it is unusual even for other potters to share their techniques and insights with each other, in Japan. The master is very much the master, and creativity and direction flows down from him. Collaboration is not the norm. We were very curious and peppered him with a ton of questions; our translator was growing more and more uneasy with the work, and you could see her trying to soften the directness of our inquisition. It would be unheard of for a Japanese group of students to behave in such a way. Matsuzaki mentioned that he wished other potters of his stature would speak to each other, in his country, about their work, and reassured us that he did not find us rude for asking him to explain and share his insights... but he is rare, indeed.
Posted by: Christina at August 4, 2009 08:01 AM