This week’s episode is about: The Sims, marriage, and the difference between myself and Ashly Burch, in that order.
It’s one of Anthony’s favorite episodes, and is kind of a sequel to his Destructoid farewell post. Kind of. Not really.
Anyway, hope you enjoy the episode!
Bullet Bill is one of gaming’s most tragic characters. That may sound silly, but it’s totally true! His only purpose is to kill Mario, but he’s so easy to avoid. Poor guy.
The proof is in this week’s episode of HAWP. Watch it and take an existential journey through the sad life of this minor Mario baddie. His story is told by Ash through the medium of poetry and many fantastic art contributions from HAWP fans.
Hope you enjoy it, and thanks to everyone who helped make this episode!
Nintendo’s downloadables are rocking this week with the release of BIT.TRIP RUNNER. Gaijin Games continues with their series of awesome games that everyone needs to play because they’re pretty fun and you’re a stupid face if you don’t agree.
Also out on the Virtual Console is Kirby Super Star. Unless you already have Kirby Super Star Ultra for the DS, Kirby Super Star is a MUST own. It’s one of the best Kirby games ever made. Plus, Kirby can get a super sweet yo-yo power-up!
DSiWare:
WiiWare:
Virtual Console:
Throughout the three versions of Animal Crossing, my town, Roothill, has been home to dozens of cute animals and lots of fun times. I’ve played regularly since the GC version and don’t ever want to stop!
This episode of Once Upon a Pixel is dedicated to those citizens who have trapped me in their world and stolen so much of my time.
You can check it out over at Gametrailers. Like it? Give it a Digg and talk about it in the forums! Enjoy!
Everyone has a game or series of games that they love above all others. A while back, a few of my fellow editors wrote articles proclaiming their favorites. I love talking about the games I love, so this was an idea I wanted to jump in on. But I couldn’t decide what my absolute favorite game was.
It took almost a year, but now I’ve finally figured it out.
A little game called Cave Story was released for WiiWare this week. I first played the PC version years and years ago, but ever since this new version was announced, I haven’t touched it because I wanted the experience to feel brand new all over again.
While I’ve always talked very highly of it (my first avatar as an editor was an image of the character Momorin), it wasn’t until I sat down with it this week that I realized… this is it. My favorite game is Cave Story.
So: Jim. Chad. I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. Cave Story is the greatest videogame ever*.
The story is a treasure
By that, I don’t mean that it’s the best videogame story ever written. I’m talking about the way that it’s told.
Cave Story treats its story like an item. You start out without a weapon and any knowledge of who you are, where you are, or if you even have a “quest” to embark on. The further you traverse, not only will you find weapons, upgrades and other special items, but you’ll also “collect” bits of story through the people you meet or the places you go.
I’m aware that it’s not the only game to do this, but I feel like it does the one of the best jobs of it. Its cut scenes never really hit you over the head with what’s going on, so it’s all up to you to look around and piece things together. There are even a few collectible items that serve no purpose aside from adding to the depth of the story and the characters.
I believe this method of storytelling is the type videogames are best at. I love being a detective, especially in a place as strange as the world where Cave Story takes place. Unearthing the history of the Mimigas and the witches and the Demon Crown is as fun as the action (and the action is so much fun).
The graphics and sound are amazing
This point is hard to put into words, since a game’s beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But I couldn’t let it go unmentioned. Cave Story is visually and audibly beautiful. Pixel’s artistic style is very simplistic, yet it somehow yields complexity. The music feels the same way. Here, have a taste:
I have to mention that he not only drew all the the pixels himself, but he also created all of the sounds from scratch. What a guy!
It’s got cool weapons out the wazoo
Some of Quote’s guns are ordinary (Polar Star, Missile Launcher), but the vast majority fall into the extraordinary. There are so many strange and wonderful ways to blast through bad guys. There is a maximum of six guns you can have (out of a total of ten), and each gun has three different upgrade levels, many of which drastically change the way the weapon works.
One of my personal favorites is the Bubbler. It shoots bubbles, which is as lame as it sounds, but it gets awesome at level 3. The bubbles float around you to form a shield, before shooting off like darts in whichever direction you choose. The Fireball is also amazing, as its bullets travel along the ground and bounce off walls. It’s great for clearing out the path ahead.
My favorite weapon, however, is the Nemesis. It only takes 1 EXP to level up, but becomes weaker each time; at Level 3, it shoots rubber duckies that only do one point of damage. I don’t just like it because it shoots ducks (though that doesn’t hurt); I like it because it changes up the gameplay drastically. Once you grab the Nemesis you’ll have to dodge weapons crystals and actually damage yourself just to keep the weapon useful.
The possibilities are endless
There sure are a lot of ways to go about playing Cave Story. Every gun has a different use, and though a mixture of them all is recommended to get through the game as painlessly as possible, you could finish the game with only one of them if you wanted. Similarly, you can choose not to pick up life capsules (which increase your health), or missile expansions. Some players have even gone so far as to limit themselves to 3 HP and a level 1 Polar Star for a totally different (and difficult) experience.
Not to mention the three different guns you can trade the Polar Star for. If you trade for the Mach
ine Gun, you get a weapon that can propel you into the air, making the jumping portions of your journey a lot less frustrating. If you get the Snake, you lose both the Polar Star and the Fireball, but you gain a Fireball-esque weapon that can go through walls. Lastly, there’s the Spur, the most powerful weapon in the game. Unlike the others, it is a charge shot, meaning that you only need to hold down the button to level its shots. You can only get one of these, or you can just choose to keep the Polar Star.
There are also three different endings you can get. They occur at different points and can really change the game as a whole. If you get the bad ending, you haven’t even made it halfway through the whole game. Even the good ending cuts the game a little short. Only the “best” one allows you to play the game in its entirety, revealing a special final level known to fans as Hell.
As many times as I’ve played Cave Story, I’ve never actually made it to Hell. If I ever do get there, I’m not certain I would ever see the end of it. It’s a rough place.
It’ll kick your ass, if you want it to
Actually, the whole game is rough. It gets less tricky once you can play it with a controller, but not by a whole lot.
You can circumvent the difficulty by choosing certain things, like trading for the Machine Gun or getting the earliest version of the Booster jetpack, but these things affect the ending you get. It’s a cool trade off. You want the game to let up on you? You can take this item and forfeit the best ending. You want it rough? Ignore all the luxurious items and go off to Hell. The worst ending marks the easiest way out.
Of course, you probably won’t know you can do this until after your first play-through… but I think this was the best way to design the game. If I had to go through a clearer choice as to whether or not I wanted to see the best ending, of course I would have taken it. But if the Ashley who played Cave Story for the first time was allowed such easy access to Hell, she probably would have given up on the game in frustration, cursed its name, and never gone back. She wouldn’t be here talking about it in a positive manner today.
It’s got Mimigas
Look at ‘em! They’re white, fluffy (I assume), floppy eared and very cute. It’s hard not to love these guys, and, without giving too much away, that has a big hand in eliciting emotion from the player. They’re the most oppressed people in the entire game, and if it doesn’t move you to see them get pushed around by bigger, meaner people, then you have no heart.
Really though, all of the different races on the island are worth playing Cave Story for. So much creativity has gone into them that it really feels like you’ve never seen anything like them before.
It’s my favorite game
I could talk about more specific things I love, like collecting Jenka’s puppies or the way Kazuma talks to Sue over IM. I could go on and on forever about how moving the story is, how satisfying the combat is, and how god damn amazing the controls and gameplay are. But to avoid thousands more words for you to read (and possibly spoil the game for those who have yet to play it), I’ll end this as briefly as I
can.
I can’t remember what it was that led me to Cave Story all those years ago. What I’m certain of was that (A.) The year was 2006, and (B.) I fell in love with it right away. I had never played anything like it before. At the time, I had not played the game’s most obvious influence, Super Metroid. But beyond that, it was the first independently made game I’d ever laid my hands on.
Knowing that the game was made by one person made me unsure what to expect from it. I kept waiting for it to end, but it kept going for hours and hours. The characters were well-made and fun to know. The story kept me gripped. The gameplay was fun, and (satisfyingly) hard. It was an epic of a game, and it blew me away.
It was my gateway into indie games, which was both a good and bad thing. It got me playing other indie games, but it also set a very high bar for all the things I played. Very few games I’ve played since have met the standard set by Cave Story, including big-budget titles.
For all its strengths, the game does have its flaws. For such a difficult game, save spots are sometimes way too far apart. Sometimes there’s a little too much emphasis on talking to an exact NPC/doing an exact series of things before you can move on. It is obviously not perfect. But damn, does it come close. So close that I, and countless others, have a huge passion for all things Cave Story. It’s a game everyone should try at least once. If not on WiiWare, the free PC version.
*This is, of course, a bit of playful hyperbole. But I do love the game very much!
Rhianna Pratchett (Overlord series), Tim Schafer (Psychonauts, Brutal Legend) and Sean Vanaman (Tales of Monkey Island), three of gaming comedy’s biggest names, got together to do a panel at GDC this year. Their topic was comedy in games.
This was an interesting discussion because it’s a topic not often visited. We often applaud videogames for their ability to move people in meaningful ways, but that “meaning” is almost always thought of as something serious. But it’s just as important to use games to make people laugh as it is to make them cry!
For an hour, these guys answered many questions, giving the audience a look into the hows and whys of videogame comedy in hopes that the developers in the audience would take something away from it. Hit the jump for a summary.
Why is there no comedy genre of games like there are for TV/movies/books?
“Because it can be used across genres,” Pratchett answered. Vanaman seemed to agree. “Comedy should be weaved into a story as seen fit,” he said. Always one to shake things up, Schafer told the audience that he wished it were a genre, just so more humorous games would be made.
How much of the humor of a game comes from its premise?
It shouldn’t be entirely dependent on writing. Funny gameplay and visuals are a lot of it as well. Pratchett looked to Overlord as an example. Many of the game’s funniest moments came from the way the minions were programmed to act and the little funny hats they wore as armor.
How do you create a comic moment in the midst of gameplay?
All three panelists agreed that timing and context are key. In Vanaman’s opinion, when the context of the player’s previous actions tint the next can make for the funniest moments. The Secret of Monkey Island is a great example of a game where this happens often. Schafer brought up one of his favorite funny MGS moments as another example: making Snake stare at a certain character’s ass until they respond accordingly/hilariously.
How do you create a unified sense of humor while on a team?
Schafer shared an old Lucasfilm adage: You have to have fun to make fun. “Telltale has a similar environment,” Vanaman said. They sit around and tell bad jokes all day, breeding a culture of funny at the workplace.
However, that culture will do no good if the team does not have a “safe” space to create. When working on Monkey Island, Schafer and his team were not aware that they were writing the game’s final script, which put pressure off them and made the funny flow freely. He admitted that he thought his three-headed monkey joke was lame, but it came to be just because he was comfortable enough to make the silliest jokes.
Vanaman said that he’s not allowed to be insecure about his jokes because of Telltale’s time schedule. With their monthly episodic model, it’s easier for workers to cut loose and be unashamed of their sense of humor.
Where do you get your comic inspiration?
Pratchett credited her humor to science fiction conventions, observational humor, and growing up with British comedy programs. For Schafer, it’s TV shows like The Simpsons. Vanaman loves the sense of humor present in Arrested Development and 30 Rock, but mostly cultivated his sense of humor through telling jokes with his best friend.
Is there a difference between the jokes you place at the forefront and the jokes that take more effort for the player to find?
Another unanimous yes came from the panelists. “It takes pressure off you when the player does somethimg silly on purpose,” said Schafer. Asking something like that of a player makes the creation of a joke much easier.
Pratchett likes to look at how much the player is trying to break the world and put stuff in those places. Making jokes for personal situations is not only funny, but also makes the player feel special.
The next question referenced Alice and Kev, an experiment done with The Sims 3 that is often sad, but also very humorous at times. Is it possible to create a game with a similar type of emergent humor?
Pratchett thinks we already have with The Sims series itself. “Psychonauts is another great example of a one-two punch,” she continued, “The comedy lowers your defenses and then it hits you with something emotional.” One of Schafer’s biggest inspirations is Kurt Vonnegut, whose writing was a mixture of sadness and comedy. “Humor is most interesting when mixed together.”
To keep up the Tim Schafer love, Vanaman relayed a story where, while playing Brutal Legend, his friend got his car stuck on something. When he broke free, he “peeled off on someone’s face” and thought it was hilarious.
Schafer laughed, wishing he had been able to foresee such a glitch and make a funny sound clip to accompany it. How smart the character AI is is not nearly as important to him as how aware they are of what’s going on around them.
How do you pick your moments?
Schafer likes moments where the player least expects humor to be. “You don’t want to be the guy who is always funny, because he gets annoying after a while. You want to be the quiet guy who suprises everyone with a rare gem of a joke.”
Vanaman inserts humor wherever the drama is, because it helps prop the comedy up. This is why humor is injected into the most serious scene of Tales of Monkey Island.
What’s the order of your creative process?
Schafer often begins with an idea of the world he wants to make. Then he thinks of the characters who would live there and the abilities they would have. This leads to the creation of gameplay mechanics. He uses this process over and over, and it’s led to a very different game every time.
Are you more inspired by books and television than other media?
Everyone said yes, but Vanaman more so than anyone else because of the episodic nature of the games he writes. He looks to shows like Lost as an inspiration. It has a hook that keeps viewers coming back week after week, much like Telltale games have to keep people interested from month to month.
What’s the place for long-running jokes, as opposed to one-off jokes?
They have to be very well planned. Basically, these types of jokes have to be written “along the spine of a game”. Schafer often uses foreshadowing in the beginning of his stories to set these up.
Closing thoughts?
“The best thing is to empower all of your people to be funny,” Vanaman answered. Everyone has the power to make a game funny, not just the writers.
Schafer urged those who are not in a powerful position of their dev teams to try and sneak funny in. He cited Portal as an example where this happened, and a very successful one at that; at this point, it’s hard to imagine the game without the humor.
Pratchett believes there is currently not enough trust in games writers. They are often brought in to a project late and have their funny lines taken out for serious situations. Writers have to keep building trust between themselves and game developers by finding those lighthearted premises that can hold up fun dialogue, mechanics or game design.
Uncharted 2 delivers what its devs called an “active cinematic experience”. “Active” represents player interaction, “cinematic” represents the “movie quality” they want their games to have, and “experience” represents the sum of all the game’s parts.
At Naughty Dog, they’re all about creating an awesome story. They shape their games around it, with their goal being to get the player emotionally invested. The purpose of their GDC talk was to give other developers a look at how such a game is created.
If that sounds interesting to you, hit the jump for a summary of the talk. Also, spoilers.
Even though Uncharted 2 is hinged on story, it and gameplay have to be considered at the same time when making a game of its ilk. This is because one can motivate the other; if story is shoehorned in later on in development, the game will suffer for it. Naughty Dog’s narrative story team is also the gameplay team. This makes things a lot easier, because the two need to be able to constantly communicate and collaborate.
When coming up with a story, the first question to ask is, “What genre are we working on?” The one you choose will help to define your story, setting, characters, mechanics and pacing. When making the Uncharted games, they started by knowing they wanted to work with the pulp-action adventure genre.
”You have to understand the genre inside and out before making decisions about your story,” they told the audience. Naughty Dog researched the genre they chose extensively, looking at movies like National Treasure, The Mummy, Die Hard, and the Indiana Jones series for inspiration.
Once you’ve got your genre, it will make it easier to ground your game. Grounding defines your limitations to help you better create a believable world with believable characters. For example, they would never have Nathan Drake use a jetpack to get to the top of a building. It just wouldn’t match the character or the world.
An actual example of grounding was taken from one of the game’s first missions: in it, Nathan and Flynn break into a museum and have to get past a lot of guards. Instead of giving the player many weapons to do the job, they only have a tranquilizer gun for this section. They did this because Nathan Drake’s character would never kill innocents, and it was the only way to ensure that the player couldn’t screw that up.
While story beats are represented by cutscenes, pacing is the gameplay sequences sandwiched between them. It is crucial in maintaining a player’s interest throughout the course of an active cinematic experience.
After a cutscene, a player’s interest tends to dip until they get to the next bit of story. But Naughty Dog wanted to make the in-between more like a rollercoaster than a steady trip. This is why Uncharted 2’s gameplay almost constantly changes without any set order. As they very succinctly put it, “When you get bored, switch yo shit up.”
If your cutscenes are too close, there’s not enough gameplay, and if they’re too far apart, there’s not enough motivation to get the player to the next one. The guys pointed out that they had the latter problem in the part of the game where Schafer gets kidnapped. They tried to make the gameplay more varied, which led into their next topic, a design element they dubbed “the gap”.
Basically, a gap is an unexpected element that comes in during gameplay, which changes your initial goal. The example they gave for this was the well-known Nepal section. The first goal is for Nathan and Chloe to get to the goal, but that alone is not a very interesting story.
Then comes the first gap: the attack helicopter.
This creates a new goal for the player, which is to avoid being shot. The further the player gets in this section, the more gaps are thrown at them, including enemies to get past and the collapsing building. Not only does this create a challenge for the player, but it creates a challenge for the character, story-wise. The fact that the player and Nathan Drake face these unexpected events together creates a stronger emotional bond between the two.
Next on their list of topics was contrast. They used this technique to make Uncharted 2’s dramatic moments really stand out. In the museum, Drake gets to the treasure, which is an upbeat moment. But then Flynn takes the treasure for himself, creating downbeat moment. Them working together was contrasted by the betrayal.
Cutscenes are a huge part of the Uncharted 2 experience. The biggest point they stressed about them was that they should not be made to show big action sequences, but to show emotional moments. Without the input of the player, these scenes can show exactly the story the game wants to tell.
Because each one is emotionally important, the transition between gameplay and cutscenes have to be as smooth as possible. The guys pointed out that many developers do a poor job of transitioning by not preparing for potential continuity breaks; if, for example, your character is facing a different way than when the cutscene starts, it can really pull you out of the game. So what’s a better way to make a transition? The way they did it in Uncharted 2, of course!
Most transitions in the game happen during forced player actions. For example, while at the wrecked train, the game forces the player to jump off of it at a certain point, at which point the cutscene begins. The truck scene mentioned earlier is another example, as the cutscene won’t trigger until the player moves Nathan to a specific area of the map. It’s much easier to make a smooth transition from something like that.
Next, they discussed scenes, which are the miniature stories they fit inside of the broader story arc. Unlike gaps, which do not constitute any emotional change, these always accompany a minor change in the protagonist. The example they gave us for this concept was Nathan’s arrival to Nepal. The climax of the scene occurs when Nathan gets cornered by a truck, then Chloe comes in, blows it up, and the scene ends. Nathan’s world is changed; Chloe is back in his life and he didn’t get killed.
They stressed how important it is to have the tone of the gameplay match up with the tone of the narrative. At this point, they looked at the injured cameraman scene, where Nathan must carry the aforementioned cameraman while under fire. The in-game consequences for this are that he can’t take cover or move as quickly as usual. Character states from previous cutscenes are also maintained through the gameplay sequence; in this case, Chloe is pissed off at Nathan, so she says abrasive things and stays ahead, while Elena says supportive things and stays back to cover him.
This led to a discussion about conflict. “Conflict is the only thing that moves your story forward,” they said, moving on to the next topic. There are three levels of conflict: extra-personal, personal, and inner conflict. The cameraman scene was engaging because all three were used.
But they had a problem when trying to design Flynn’s death. The relationship between he and Nathan was built up and torn down several times throughout the course of the story. There is even a point where you are forced to work with him again, as enemies. All of this conflict was manufactured to build up emotional hate toward Flynn’s character, so that it could be resolved in a boss fight by the player. Unfortunately, time ran out and they couldn’t quite line up character motivation, so they had to kill him in a cutscene instead. In the future, they will try to pinpoint problems like these earlier.
To round out their talk, they touched on a few smaller ways they made the world and characters of Uncharted 2 feel more alive. Dialogue was a huge one, of course, but another important one was giving them contextual movesets. A few examples they gave were Nathan putting his hands up when near fire, shivering in the cold, and stumbling when hurt. They also replaced inappropriate actions in certain places, like the Tibetian town, where the button that normally punches gives out handshakes.
In conclusion, they told their audience, “Stop thinking about stories being seperate from gameplay.” They’ve got the right idea in thinking this way, as the process behind Uncharted 2 has made evident.
Yoshio Sakamoto is a man who needs very little introduction. He is one of the most famous team members from Nintendo’s R&D1 department and has directed such masterpieces as Super Metroid and the WarioWare games. It was an honor to be in his audience.
Throughout his long career with Nintendo, he has had a hand in games that are polar opposites of one another. He came to GDC this year to share how he is able to make such silly games alongside some very serious ones. Hit the jump for a summary of his very informative and entertaining talk.
Introduction
Sakamoto began by gong through his history with Nintendo, starting with the Metroid series. He feels a little bit of resistance when people credit him as being its creator. He likes to think of himself more as the person who raised Samus. “After all, the mother of Metroid is the Queen Metroid,” he chuckled.
Although he wasn’t involved in Metroid II, the scene where the baby Metroid imprints itself on Samus was what inspired him to make Super Metroid. He wanted to add more drama similar to that scene to the series, which of course resulted in its famous scene where the Metroid larva saves Samus during the last boss battle. In turn, this scene was where Other M was born. He also tried to inject similar meaningful story elements into the other two Metroid games he directed, Fusion and Zero Mission.
He then moved on to the other famous series that made it to the States, WarioWare. Like with Metroid, the origins of WarioWare did not stem from his creativity, but he took the idea and helped it grow. He was first the director for WarioWare: Twisted!. He brought the prototype to Satoru Iwata and asked what he thought of the prototype, where the unit had to be spun around in circles to win. At this time, Sakamoto brought up an image of Iwata spinning a GBA on an office chair and thinking, “This is idiotic.”
WarioWare: Touched! and Smooth Moves were a bit harder because of the change in platforms. No one knew exactly how to use the power of the DS and Wii, and everyone working on the games were new to the series. For Smooth Moves, the intent was to make a flagship game for the Wii controller. There was so much that could be done with it that it presented a problem, which is why the game’s various forms and poses were created.
WarioWare D.I.Y. came from the individuality Sakamoto saw in his team members. He wanted to see what kinds of microgames could be made when even more individuals were given the opportunity to make them. He showed us a little minigame he made where you shoot ice missiles at Metroids.
Next, he did his best to explain Tomodachi Collection (Friend Collection) to all of the Americans in the audience.”It’s like playing house with Miis,” he said. It was released last year in Japan and has sold three million units.
He touched upon the Famicom Tantei Club (Famicom Detective Club) games very quickly. They were the first games he wrote scenarios for and were “very important titles” for him. The last of his games the he discussed was Balloon Fight, which he worked on with Iwata himself. An image of the two men popped up, which Sakamoto described as a diagram of the diferent ways the two men think. Iwata’s thought bubble was filled with complicated math while his own contained a doodle of a duck.
Why am I here?
His reason for doing this talk was Iwata’s curiosity about his game development methods. Specifically, he wanted to know how one person could work on such serious games, and then go the complete opposite way and make such silly games. He thinks of Sakamoto as only being capable of being silly. Up came another image of Iwata, this time with a speech bubble asking, “Why don’t you explore the secret of creating games for such a dynamic range of titles?”
When he first started to think about Iwata’s questions, Sakamoto found himself perplexed. He had never really thought about it before. To simplify things, he separated his games into two categories: games made with a serious touch, and games made with a comical touch.
Inspiration in game design: serious
When he was young, he came across the films of director Dario Argento and fell in love with them. He used music in masterful ways, stopping and starting it at specific times to heighten suspense. He also invoked invoked fear through foreshadowing, and increased the feeling of tension by contrasting storylines and scenes. “Without a doubt, I wanted to create things in the same manner,” he said. And so he did.
Other movies that have inspired him over the years include Luc Besson’s Leon the Professional, John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow, and Brian de Palma’s Carrie. “Films have opened my eyes to techniques that can bring a story to life,” he told the audience.
Timing, foreshadowing, contrast and control over mood became the four biggest elements for him to consider when making something. Famicom Tantei Club II in particular was made as an homage to Argento.
Inspiration in game design: comedy
Sakamoto is a man who loves to make other people laugh. He works hard to make the humor in his games fit any situation or audience, but makes sure it retains his distinctive style.
Like with his serious games, he makes his comedic games with the desire to control the reaction of the audience. He told the audience that he wants to “engineer laughs”. Mood, timing, foreshadowing and contrast are also critical to comedy, and he revealed that though the results are very different, he uses the same creation process for both types.
“As long as one is open to new experiences, you can create a single toolset that can move hearts in many different ways,” he said.
Specific examples
He used Tomodachi Collecction as an example of a comedy game. He had the idea for the game for about nine years before it was ever made. Originally called Grown Woman’s Fortune Telling Notebook, it was going to be a game aimed at young girls to encourage communication. The Mii Channel influenced Sakamoto and caused him to take the game in a more universally appealing direction.
He showed a video from his personal game, where his Mii had Miis of all his friends to play with. We saw Iwata, Miyamoto, Reggie and Samus doing all sorts of things with Sakamoto, such as growing tall enough to knock down buildings and shoot lasers a-la Godzilla. The room erupted in laughter at the pure silliness of the game.
He felt his greatest contribution was working with the director to stay true to what his vision of what Tomodachi Collection should be. “The story is driven by the player. The player has fun and it draws in their friends.”
The example he chose for the serious side was Other M, a game he called a “synthesis of all the know-how and things [he] had ever envisioned”. His goal was to give the game a suspenseful feel and explore the human drama element of the Metroid series he had added so many years ago in Super Metroid.
He laid the foundation of game design before collaborating with Team Ninja. They bounced ideas off of one another, “working as equals without limitations”. One of the things they did not see eye-to-eye on was the control scheme Sakamoto had his heart set on. But they worked together to solve the problem and came out with a control scheme that worked much better for the game in the end.
Aside from Team Ninja, there are many other companies working with Sakamoto on this project. Together, they’re known as Project M. They all have created a strong bond working on the project, and no one part is more or less important than another. He took a moment to mention a few of the other team members. First, he showed off one of the game’s storyboards, which were created by Ryuzi Kitaura. “Working with him has made Other M a much more beautiful game,” Sakamoto said.
Then he spoke of Kuniaki Haishima, who is in charge of sound. “The synchronization between the visuals and the music will be moving your hearts very soon.” He also talked a little about the voice actors chosen for the project. He was “very selective” and chose all of them without making any compromises. Jessica Martin is the voice of Samus because she “matches the world perfectly”.
Knowing that all of the Metroid fans in the crowd were frothing at the mouths at this point, he told us, “Please, be patient just a little while longer.”
Final thoughts
Sakamoto has come across many things created by other people throughout his life. He told the audience that these things move his spirit, and creates images that have stayed with him. “It’s our job to take those moments and give them shapes. Developing games is all about giving shape to images.”
The Famicom had not been released when he came to Nintendo, so he had to find his own way. Since then, he has become very passionate about what he does. He felt “like a child engrossed in a new toy” while working on the first Metroid.
Lastly, he pulled up an image of a valentine and a box of chocolates. He explained the slide with a story: one day, he received a package with a letter and a box of chocolates. They came from a female fan. In the letter, she wrote how much she had enjoyed a game he had made. He then explained that, in Japan, it is customary for women to give chocolate to men they’re interested in. This was the first time he realized that the things we create can touch the heart and spirits of people, and can move them.
“I hope that you will continue to convey the things stored in your hearts into games,” he said before the roar of thunderous applause.
The full name of the talk was “Tripping the art fantastic: A beginner’s guide to the brains of these here artists”. It featured Edmund McMillen (Super Meat Boy), David Hellman (Braid) and Derek Yu (Spelunky). As a fan of all three and an artist, you couldn’t drag me away from such a panel!
These three talented fellows willingly had their brains picked in front of a live audience. There was laughter, tears, drawings of boobs and artistic wizardry abound. The awesome was a bit hard to keep up with, but I did my best to condense it into written word for you all to enjoy. Hit the jump for the summary of the journey into these three artists’ minds; it’s a great read even if you’re not an artist (but it might help).
Ben Ruiz of Flashbang Studios (you know, the guys who made Off-Road Velociraptor Safari) acted as the moderator for the discussion. His first question to the panelists was, “Which of your works are you most proud of?”
McMillen’s answer was Aether because of the way the game flowed from him. It was easy to make, very personal, and it turned out better than anything else he’d made so far. Hellman looked back fondly on Braid and his old comic, A Lesson is Learned, But the Damage is Irreversible. Yu picked Aquaria because it was the hardest game he’d worked on. The difficulty caused him to grow as an artist.
Ruiz jokingly asked Yu how much of the Seumas McNally Award that Aquaria won was because of its art, but he did feel like it made a big difference. “Graphics are the first thing people see. They tell a story by themselves.”
The next question was, “Which of your works are you most ashamed of?”
When working on Lesson, Hellman sometimes had to “get through some crap so [he] could move on to the better stuff”. Even so, he didn’t mind that they’re a part of his body of work. “It’s interesting to see the contrast,” he said. McMillen had a not-so-fond look back on a poetry book he wrote in high school. It was pretty self explanatory why that would be something to be a bit ashamed of.
Hellman then pulled out a little orange booklet. It was a small, homemade comic that Yu had created several years earlier, which was “full of boobies”. He felt it was appropriate to pull out for this question, but Yu assured everyone that he wasn’t at all ashamed about the weird, tit-filled ‘zine.
Ruiz then asked the panelists, “What is the most inspirational thing you’ve ever experienced?”
In response, McMillen told the audience a story about an independent artist who visited his class in high school. “I thought he was the coolest guy in the world,” he said. He saw so much freedom in the man that it pushed him to try and lead the same kind of life. Hellman’s inspiration comes from no one person or thing; he is inspired by the wrold. He feels he needs to answer his reactions to things he sees or hears by making something.
Yu’s mother and father were his biggest inspiration. “I drew before I could write. My mom would spend time making up stories for the things I drew, and my dad was the first person I drew with.” He still talks shop with his dad and shows his work off to his parents.
“How often do you feel deprived of inspiration, and how does it affect your game making?”
McMillen simply said, “I don’t make them.” “I can’t work on things if I’m not invested,” added Yu. When he’s in a creativity funk, he often switches from art to coding because it forces him into a different mindset. Hellman states that one of the hardest things about being an artist is figuring out what you actually like and creating that, as opposed to creating something you want to make. Sometimes, what you want to make is outside of your capabilities, and pursuing something like that will result in art that is not your own.
The next question regarded the feedback they receive from their audiences. While Hellman looks forward to feedback and McMillen uses it as a part of creation, Yu feels like it’s something completely separate from that. He enjoys getting it, but he feels it’s too impersonal to fit into his creative process like the others do.
The panelists were then asked how they deal with rising expectations for their games as they work on them.
McMillen said, “Respond with more content. If impressions are already positive, make it better.” On the other hand, high expectations make Hellman excited to defy them. “I don’t worry about the expectations of others because I have my own,” he said. “When expectations are met, it’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Yu said, “Though, I would like it if people were more willing to be surprised.”
In an attempt to get some interesting answers, the next question was, “Drug of choice?” The panelists laughed, and both McMillen and Hellman responded with “caffeine”.Yu said that he injects snake venom into his eyes, but he didn’t really convince anyone so he gave up and answered “sleep.” He sleeps ten hours a day if he can help it.
“What types of creative mistakes do you see others make that you’ve already made?” was the next question.
“Using abstract formulas in games where the user gives up their own interpretations of things as a crutch,” McMillen answered first. He reflected back on Coil, a game where he attempted to tell the audience something about himself. But he had left it so open-ended that players filled in the blanks and unintentionally changed its intended meaning. Hellman spoke about clarity, and how walking the line between ambiguity is difficult. Many fall on either side instead of trying to stay near the middle.
The mistake Yu sees other artists make is a lack of exaggeration in their works. Making something or someone look super realistic has the opposite effect; the exaggeration of certain features can do a better job of making a character seem more alive. He makes an example of caricature art and how they are often a better reflection of the subject than a photograph.
Ruiz then asked, “Do you make art for yourself or others?”
Again, each panelist had a very different answer. McMillen makes his art for himself, but he doesn’t feel validated until it reaches others. It’s his personal way of communicating with people on a large scale. Yu feels that his art is always created to entertain, whether it be making a game for other people or doodling to pass the time for himself. Hellman had a few wise words to share: “Give people something that’s true, not something that was cooked up for them.”
The talk ended on a funny note when Ruiz prompted Yu to talk about how Internet Rule 34 (which states “if it exists, there’s porn of it”) of videogame characters, especially his own, makes him feel. He’d been sent Spelunky porn recently and has seen plenty of weird Aquaria stuff since its release, but he has never taken offense to any of it. In fact, he thinks it’s funny.
“The nature of art can’t be spoiled by someone else taking something you’ve made and perverting it.”
Thus ended the short trip into the minds of these three videogame artists.
Flixel is a free Actionscript library that enables gamemakers to prototype and create new games quickly and easily. It’s a pretty awesome tool, and games like Canabalt, Fathom and Tuper Tario Bros. (among many others!) wouldn’t be around without it. So far, it’s only been capable of developing Flash games for the PC/Mac, but pretty soon, we’ll be able to make iPhone games with it.
During today’s Canabalt postmortem (a summary of which is coming soon!), Adam “Atomic” Saltsman made this special announcement and went into a little more detail on what Flixel for iPhone will be capable of. In addition to its normal functionality, it will feature a rudimentary Actionscript 3-to-Objective-C translator to accelerate iPhone ports of Flixel games. There’s still a lot for me to learn about programming, but I got a feeling having this tool at our disposal will make development for the platform a lot more accessible.
Flixel for iPhone is not yet finished, but a private release beta will begin very soon, with the public release to follow.