GDC 2011.

After a quick trip to Meijer to pick up trail mix (a must have for the very long days of a CA at GDC...), I will be off to the 2011 Game Developer's Conference.

I'm pumped.

Let's talk about video games there, okay guys? That'll be fun, yeah?

I promise to bring back stories.

A New Attitude for the Game Industry.

(I wrote this back in the summer. For some reason, I never posted it.)

My playing of Mirror's Edge has got me thinking about the way we make games...

It seems to me that a lot of games these days are more like proofs of concept rather than full games. They are more like a highly polished demo of a really neat mechanic than a full game exploiting that mechanic well.

Mirror's Edge is a good example of this. As you can see in previous posts, I think there are a few ways in which the game can be improved. This short game was a great way to prove that yes, we can make a game about parkour. After making seven or eight short chapters, we can now move on and work on a full 15 chapter game with a few tweaks and new features.

Portal is another example of these proof of concept games. It was a very short game and proved that a game whose central mechanic is a new law of physics could work - both artistically and commercially. It was a fantastic triumph of game design. But so far, Portal 2 looks like it will be even better. After watching all the videos, it looks like it took what Portal 1 did and improved it in every way possible.

This kind of iterative development is supposed to happen in the development process, though, right?

Yes. But I think there's value in seeing what the audience likes and doesn't like - beyond a focus group. It gives the developers time to regroup. To wait for the audience to contribute some good ideas. To figure out how the heck they can make the story better, the levels more devious. Rather than developing something and iterating in the team until it's perfect, why don't we do what these teams have done and release small versions of the ideas we believe in? Then, after audience reaction and some more time to percolate in-house, we could go back in, tidy it up, and build a bigger, badder, more awesome version of the game we sort of already designed.

Some cool links.

I hate it when I have these thoughts.  And I'm really passionate about them.  And I rant and rave in a draft blog post.  But I never go back to make it an actual post with, you know, good english and persuasive arguments.  And then I find articles online that express exactly my thoughts in a better way.  Here are some:

Gamasutra - Truth in Game Design

Good stuff.  So good, in fact, that I overcame my fear of commenting on strangers' websites to submit an additional thought.  My concern is that for some idealistic and truth-loving designers out there, there exists the temptation to make designs transparent, to make the truths easily graspable (It's the preacher in me...).  However, I suppose I once again come back to the idea of virtue in difficulty (wherever I read that).


Identification, Please

This is, quite simply put, why I don't like FPS games.  There is no character through whom I can care about the world.  I, as Kemp Lyons, do not care about that mess of pixels and binary in the games I play.  But if I have a character to play as, I can care through him or her.  Sean Sands says it in a little more scholarly, less personal way than I would have and I'm grateful for that. 

There may be more.  I'm not sure.  But these two articles really stuck out to me today.

Statement of Purpose.

Apparently when you apply for graduate schools, they want to hear your purposes for yourself. This is something I wrote when I didn't know what else to write. So it got a little silly... Enjoy.

When I was in third grade, I covered the backs of my notepads with drawings of Mario levels. I was fascinated by the world of Mario thanks, in no small part, to the machinations of Squaresoft’s Super Mario RPG. I have viewed all of my life as a journey toward the illustrious goal of creating and writing for video games.

I’m qualified because nobody else is qualified. Name one game that exists that I could not have made on my own with a team of monkeys. You can’t. Not a one. Because everyone in the game industry are talentless hacks. That’s right. I said it. You can only remake the shooter so many times, American games industry. (And the same goes for you, Japan. RPGs are cool, but let’s grow up, shall we?)

After a grad school education, I plan on rocking the world of games. I will design so many creative titles that you’ll think Shigeru Miyamoto himself was only a toddler doodling on his parents’ walls with permanent marker. Will Wright will look like the nerd that he is and David Jaffe will shut his big fat trap. Instead, I will be lauded as the man who saved video games.

I can make better art games. I can make better simulations. I can make better story-centric-forever-long-JRPGs. I can make better open world games. I can make genres that you haven’t even heard about because I am a creative.

Unlike the rest of this stupid industry dominated by morons who would rather stare at a computer screen than gaze into the beauty of the nature around them. Jason Rohrer’s got it right. We all need to live in little huts on the edge of the country, making games about how much we wish we could play with our daughters. Or more like Jonathon Blow. Make something that can provoke thought out of this Neanderthal pea-sized brain in my head.

Hello World.

I've been trying to kick my butt in gear for a while now to launch a blog dedicated to video game design, story, and other random media related thoughts, so I finally did it.

Check out all its majesty at thekemp.wordpress.com.

(Theoretically,) This still means that I'll be updating this blog as well, but I will be trying to put more thoughts more frequently over there. I hope no one is too terribly insulted.

Setbacks

I thought I would chronicle my setbacks of yesterday. I've found it very healthy to retell them. I figure that way I will continue to view them simply as setbacks and I will learn more from them.

I called the division chair at Ferris State University who is in charge of their game design program. He didn't pick up, so I left a message explaining a bit of who I am, that I want to take some classes at Ferris, and for him to call me back to talk about it.

Right after that, I decided to go pop in on Dave Anderson's office, just to see if he was there.
(He's the guy on campus that teaches story for video games at Ferris.) He happened to have been in his office, so I explained to him what I was trying to do at Ferris. Ultimately, he kind of skirted around telling me that it was highly unlikely to happen - at least, not without enrolling at Ferris quite separately.

So, one idea shot down. No big deal.

I continued to tell him that I also had an idea for an independent study course that would teach me video game design stuff. I told him that it would be a kind of guided reading course where I would read design books and articles, play some video games, and write some papers applying what I learn in the books to the games. Perhaps the culmination of the course would be in writing up a design document for an original game.

Now, as an aside here, my understanding of independent study courses was that they were just that. The professor who was tied to it was kind of a formality - someone who would check on you every once in a while, read your papers, and make sure you were making progress. This was not Dave Anderson's understanding. Apparently, independent study professors are supposed to have some kind of expertise in the field of study. So, he told me that he would be unable to help me (in a round about kind of way, though).

So that's two major ideas for my education shot down. Drats.

I was whining about this to Leesa Lehmann and she suggested talking to Perini. After all, he does design games. So I talked to Perini, who was much more helpful. He said that he would be open to it next Fall semester, as long as I got together as many resources as I could (books, syllabi, project rubrics). One of his suggestions was to email my future grad school department chair and ask him for suggestions.

So that's only one and a half ideas. That's good.

The last thing that really got to me was that I told the CEO of the company I'm trying to intern for that I would get him a resume by Tuesday. I stayed up til 3:00 in the morning to finish it, and, for the most part, it was finished.

That experience alone taught me a ton. Like the importance of a cover letter.

Tuesday kept going and I had still not put the finishing touches on the resume. It wouldn't take too long. But then I realized that I should type up a cover letter (they're a bit complicated...). Ultimately, I didn't send the resume until 10:00 Tuesday night with only a brief cover letter. I know that I still got it to him on Tuesday, but the implication was that I would do so in the workday. My not doing that small task on time may have shaken his confidence in my ability to do more important tasks in a timely manner.

This may not break my chances at that company, though (I think he's pretty desperate). If it does, I've learned a ton. I've updated my resume, learned about cover letters, and applied to a company - a step I've never quite undertaken before.

I can now take everything I'm learning to Silicon Knights, the Canadian game developer I would love to work for. I should definitely have a cover letter for that...

So that's that long story. Sorry bout that.

Just checking

So I'm working on a resume right now and the CEO wanted me to attach a picture. He says it makes hiring people and working with them online way easier. Unfortunately, the only somewhat decent picture I have is 2 years old and my hair is still way long.

Does anyone have any recent pictures of just me when my hair is not ridiculously long?

Good news!

So all that internal locus of control stuff might actually work. Especially when others are playing along.

The CEO I was going to email today? Yeah. Totally emailed him.

He totally replied within 6 hours of my email. With good news. Possible internship news.

It still may be early for me to get my hopes up, especially since I don't exactly have any marketable skills - not even as a code monkey. But! There is hope.

So if you could continue to pray for me, friends (heck, even enemies. It'd be good for both of us.), I would be greatly appreciative.

An Internal Locus of Control

So I'm pretty much intimidated out of my mind right now.

I just looked through a few game design and development blogs. Almost every one of them has had a "How to break into the industry" subpage - since they get asked so often.

Examples (just for kicks):
Zen of Design
GameCareerGuide.com
Psychochild

Their advice is certainly informative, but disheartening. Let's take Zen of Design's list for example:

• Entry positions are rare - Companies don't hire people straight out of school because there are always experienced people in the market.
• Get in the door any way you can - answer phones, do Quality Assurance work, whatever. Suck it up and get in.
• Build a portfolio - That's what college is for. Show potential employers some kind of finished product - whether NeverWinter Nights mods or simple flash games.
• Prove you can finish - Ideas are cheap. Everyone in the industry has about 100 great ideas they can use any time. You must be able to execute.
• Build networks - 'Nuff said.
• Do anything to get a game industry line on your resume - Intern, do freelance work, or work for a startup
• Accept that you'll be the low man on the totem pole - Be willing to learn. Don't be a brown-noser, but be humble.
• Excel - Be good at what you do.

So that's that. It's quite terrifying, considering I don't have many opportunities to do this stuff. But, in order to shift to an internal locus of control for my life (thank you psychology), I shall list how I'm planning on overcoming these crazy things.

• Hrm... I guess I can't do much about this except be good at the rest.
• I'm emailing a CEO of a small company tomorrow. I'll be emailing other companies in the next week or so looking for internships.
• I have two options here: wait for grad school to come around, or do something slightly out of the ordinary. I'm not much of an artist or a programmer and I don't have a team to work with (I believe that's been pointed out). What can I do? Story. How can I show them proof of interactive story concepts and execution? Dungeons and Dragons, baby.
  
• Well, this is probably accomplished by actually doing any and all of the above.
• Networking is always a challenge for me, but I'm seeing what I can do to go to the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco in March. Also, I'm going to ask said CEO if he might be able to be a contact for me just to grab advice from every once in a while.
• Again, internships.
• Honestly, this is a personal and spiritual growth issue. I'd like to be confident and know I'm good at what I do, but at the same time, I must always remember that there are others that are better. Especially there.
• Yeah... I guess I just need to do this...

So there's all that. You, dear Reader, have now borne witness to my mindset trying to change. I think I'm going to write a different post now. Bye bye.

I am frustrated.

I just want to be a video game designer. That's it. No more of this silly school stuff. Just let me have a team that shares my vision, some time to get better influences, and some money and let me design video games.

If you have any interest at all in video games, you should read and understand as best you can this article. Then, you should proceed to get just as passionate about it as I am and decide to do what you need to do to be on my team some day.

Currently, there are these positions:

• Programmer(s) with a passion for programming, but with wide influences
  
• Artist(s) with a passion for 3D modeling, concept art, and visual storytelling with wide influences
• Business folks with a passion for the video game industry, but with wide influences
• Investor(s) with little expectation for success but deep pockets. Must believe in vision and trust the creatives.
• Writer(s) with a passion for storytelling, video games, and being a part of video games becoming art. Must have wide influences.
  
• Lawyer(s) with a passion for law and experience and passion for the entertainment art industry

And the best part of all? No previous experience in the industry is required!

Soon...