How to make a creative game in 2010: Ensure your CEO never hears of the game - by thiefinthedark
Koki on 26/6/2010 at 06:20
Quote Posted by Al_B
Do you mean innovative? There's a big difference between creative storytelling, presentation and artwork and innovating new gameplay mechanics. I've played it for the first time within the last few weeks thanks to some tip-offs in this forum and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's a few years old now and I'd struggle to point out anything that hadn't been done before at the time - but there's no doubt in my mind that it was a creative game.
well-
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
I think that's the most coherent thing Koki has ever posted on these forums.
what?
Ummm, what's going on in this thread?
thiefinthedark on 26/6/2010 at 18:53
Not that guy, no, good summary of the opinion of the guy I know, though.
Poetic thief on 26/6/2010 at 22:49
Quote Posted by thiefinthedark
Not that guy, no, good summary of the opinion of the guy I know, though.
Hmm...does this other person you know still work at Obsidian?
Because the person who made that online rant is a disgruntled ex-employee and that might warp his views a bit, don't you think?
thiefinthedark on 26/6/2010 at 23:32
Quote Posted by Poetic thief
Hmm...does this other person you know still work at Obsidian?
Because the person who made that online rant is a disgruntled ex-employee and that might warp his views a bit, don't you think?
I can neither confirm nor deny his current employment status. Bad economy and all that, yes? :erg:
Zygoptera on 27/6/2010 at 01:18
In this case a certain amount of context is required. Independent studios like Obs are in a very weak position with respect to publishers. In this case Obs had a licence for an engine they'd bought for a project which never found a publisher- Project New Jersey/ Seven Dwarves- and AP was basically the replacement for it. If Sega demanded changes (and there is pretty good evidence they did, it's a very large coincidence otherwise as to the timing of the storyline rewrite) as a prerequisite of publishing then those changes would be made and they would come down from the Obs side producer, Chris Parker. In return they got their project funded.
Of course I really liked AP and to my mind the biggest intrinsic problem it had was the engine- UE3 is pretty rubbish if you want to make a multiplatform Deus Ex like game, it simply cannot deliver the level size required for such a game.
june gloom on 27/6/2010 at 01:53
I dunno, have you played Batman: Arkham Asylum? It does a good job of making areas seem huge and seamless even though you can tell it's loading an area you're about to enter. (Though, obviously, this only applies to a given location as well as most of the outdoors- moving between outdoor and indoor sections must all go through a loading screen.)
The concept isn't exactly new, either; Metroid Prime did something similar (why do you think it had so many long hallways with respawning minor annoyances? To keep you busy while the next section loaded!) and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night had brief, one-screen hallways where the music stopped, and the time it took you to get from one end to the other was usually enough for the game to load the next section. (It even had a little CD icon as part of the decorative scrollwork.)
Zygoptera on 27/6/2010 at 05:00
I haven't played B:AA, it's on my 'to play when I get time and when they get more stock into the country/ 3rd world infrastructure gets updated so I'm not limited to 2 GB traffic a month' list so I can't comment on it.
For all its faults the only 'UE3' game I've played with decent non linearity of level design- and didn't have obvious internal level loading syndrome- was Bioshock and even then it was more a choice of explore or not rather than having the sorts of different approaches Deus Ex or Thief have. I suspect the possibility of having lots and lots of AI present if you're playing a sneaky character in AP- and their potential effect on 360/PS3 framerates- was the primary limiting factor rather than the ability to push polys. In the Bug the Airfield mission you can see probably 80% of the total level architecture from near the starting location but there's only ever a max of about six AI present at any given time.
Whether it was sensible to try and make such a game given the limitations inherent is another question. It may be a shame that 2k didn't publish it- using the Bioshock modified UE3 as a base would have helped a fair bit I suspect as a lot of the modifications would have been complementary. Setting the game ten years in the future probably would have been sensible too in retrospect.
june gloom on 27/6/2010 at 06:02
Bioshock's maps really aren't that big, most of them anyway. And there's no obvious "loading hallways" like B:AA.
Eldron on 27/6/2010 at 07:48
Quote Posted by Zygoptera
I haven't played B:AA, it's on my 'to play when I get time and when they get more stock into the country/ 3rd world infrastructure gets updated so I'm not limited to 2 GB traffic a month' list so I can't comment on it.
For all its faults the only 'UE3' game I've played with decent non linearity of level design- and didn't have obvious internal level loading syndrome- was Bioshock and even then it was more a choice of explore or not rather than having the sorts of different approaches Deus Ex or Thief have. I suspect the possibility of having lots and lots of AI present if you're playing a sneaky character in AP- and their potential effect on 360/PS3 framerates- was the primary limiting factor rather than the ability to push polys. In the Bug the Airfield mission you can see probably 80% of the total level architecture from near the starting location but there's only ever a max of about six AI present at any given time.
Whether it was sensible to try and make such a game given the limitations inherent is another question. It may be a shame that 2k didn't publish it- using the Bioshock modified UE3 as a base would have helped a fair bit I suspect as a lot of the modifications would have been complementary. Setting the game ten years in the future probably would have been sensible too in retrospect.
Bioshock = unreal engine 2.5, and since you bring AP to the table. It's really up to the developer how they want to handle the scope of their levels, and how good they are at optimizing their assets so that levels can be bigger.
Unreal engine has always been super flexible, There has always been vast games made in the Unreal engines, way bigger than bioshock.
