Archive:PlayNOW! - 2 - Order vs. Chaos

Description

About

• Published: ?
• Host: Playnow.com.au
• Author: Paul O’Connor
• Game: Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee
• Format: Publised Online

Notes

Unfortunately, we were unable to recover the second half of this designer diary. If you have a copy, please let us know.

The Designer Diary

Part Two: Order vs. Chaos

There is a ‘chicken and the egg’ quality to software development. What comes first? The art is dependent on the design, which is dependent on the programming, which is dependent on what the other departments want to accomplish. Also, everything is dependent on a publisher to distribute the game, which is dependent on a schedule to finish the game in a reasonable amount of time. The schedule, in turn, is dependent on the design, which is dependent on prevailing market whims and forces, which of course must be anticipated years in advance of the game actually hitting the shelves, because these things aren’t built overnight …

It’s chaos. How can you ever get started, with everything depending on everything else?

You start by Deciding.

In my last column, I listed many of the responsibilities of a game designer: building levels, defining controls, writing documents, and more. What I didn’t list was arguably the most important task of all—​deciding. Someone has to make choices. Someone has to be the arbiter of what is and what is not good gameplay. That person is the game designer.

Does the game designer have the last word? No. The proof is in the playing. No matter how well intentioned, if the game just isn’t fun to play, then we rip it out and go another direction. No, better than the last word—​and far more critical, considering the time and money that’s on the line—​the designer has the first word. It is the designer’s job to bring order out of chaos by setting creative priorities and forging a comprehensive view of the game, both at its inception and during development.

There were lots of bits and pieces swirling around when we started work on Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee. Here are some that were most significant:

Story: The story of Abe, the hero of our first two games, needed to continue into the next title. How has Abe changed since the end of Oddworld: Abe’s Exoddus? Does he continue to lead the struggle against the Magog Cartel, or has he gone back to being a simple, ignorant Mudokon? Character Design: How do we introduce Munch, the newest lead character in the Oddworld universe? What powers does he have? What does he look like? What is his story, and how does he connect with Abe? Technology: What will be required of our new 3D game engine? What platform(s) will have the hardware horsepower to run our game? Gameplay: What play aspects of previous Oddworld games will carry forward into this new title? What new ones will be added?

[The section below was originally published in the Italian magazine Super Consoleand has been translated into English by GPT]

At Oddworld Inhabitants we tried to answer to these questions (strictly related between them) with a team work. Our president, as well as our "creative guru", Lorne Lanning, has started to work to the script explaining in a detailed way Munch's origins, the evolution of Abe's story and how the two would have met. Our Production Designers, guided by Farzad Varahramyan, have undertaken the challenging creation process of not only Munch, but also of all the new creatures, the buildings and the veichles that will appear in our next game. The programmers have started to implement the "heart's" engine, so it could be possible to work on the game's mechanic from the beginning.... and to Game Designers there's nothing left to do but take care of everything else! We started throwing up tons of sketches and ideas on paper. Guided by Assistant Director Chris Ulm, we've started with identifying which would have been the main aspects of game's mechanic of Munch's Oddysee. Some of these were obvious and easily recognizable, like the fact of controlling characters in a tridimensional world. Others, like the possibility of recycle the objects in the various envoirments, training and guiding the armies or switching from a character to another for a long period of time, were a bit less "flashy". Some aspects, like the multiplayer and online game support, or the "customization" of various characters, came from the one that could define the "philosphy" of Oddworld Inhabitants.

We knew since the beginning we'd have identified too many aspects of the mechanic so they could be inserted in a single game, but it wasn't a problem, because we knew we weren't working on a single game, but on the whole future game production of Oddworld Inhabitants. Since the various Oddworlds will always have common aspects in the game's mechanic, our titles will "fit" easily between them in the course of the next decade. Once the various salient aspects of Munch's Oddysee are identified, chosen and listed for importance's order, the next step has been the creation of screens on paper for each of them. We started with the base elements of control's system and game's interface, then we gradually moved to physics, the virtual world simulation system and the characters behaviour controlled by CPU. Step by step we were careful to examine and review all the options at our disposal, discussing on which one was the best in the cours of endless meetings and through a constant retouching of our final goals. Do you want to know how these decisions were then transformed into the actual design document? Well, i'll tell you everything in the next meeting with Game Design Diary! In the meanwhile send me a couple of lines via email to tell me how am i doing: quetions, comments and suggestions for the next issues of GDD are always welcome.

ART DESIGN

The Design Document of Oddworld Inhabitants includes a large library of sketches that illustrate not only the aesthetic of every single native creature of Oddworld, but even its internal skeletal-muscular structure, the movement performed by joints and other "minor" features. The artistic talent of Farzad Varahramyan, as well as his obsessive attention to details, is easily appreciable taking a look at some of his works.

Paul O' Connor

03-02-2000