Showing posts with label postmortem. Show all posts

Monday, October 21, 2013

Postmortems at Gamasutra

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/postmortem/

Postmortem: DrinkBox Studios' Guacamelee! 6
by Anonymous [09.23.13]
Learn about the development of the popular and acclaimed PlayStation Network Metroidvania -- including how the game's distinctive look evolved and competition for studio resources created friction.
Business/Marketing, Design, Postmortem, Production, Indie

Monsters from the Id: The Making of Doom 1
by Array [08.22.13]
From the very first (January 1994) issue of Game Developer magazine, this feature on Id Software paints a unique portrait of a legendary developer whose games would launch a genre.
Postmortem, Game Developer Magazine, History, GD Mag, GD Mag Exclusive

Postmortem: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning 11
by Array [07.30.13]
In this postmortem, reprinted from the April 2012 issue of Game Developer magazine, former Big Huge Games executive producer Mike Fridley walks through what went right and what went wrong with Kingdoms of Amalur's production leading up to a release that would sink two studios.
Postmortem, Production, GD Mag Exclusive, Alternative Funding

Postmortem: Game Developer magazine 8
by Brandon Sheffield [07.05.13]
In this postmortem from the final (June/July 2013) issue of GD Mag, Brandon Sheffield turns the critical lens inward to examine the ups and downs of GD Mag's 19-year legacy.
Postmortem, Game Developer Magazine, GD Mag Exclusive

Postmortem: Resident Evil 4 8
by Array [06.26.13]
In this reprint from the October 2005 issue of Game Developer magazine, Resident Evil 4 cinematics lead Yoshiaki Hirabayashi writes about the overhauls and challenges which faced one of the franchise's most notable entries.
Design, Postmortem, Art, Game Developer Magazine, GD Mag Exclusive

Postmortem: Treyarch's 2002 hit, Spider-Man 2
by Array [06.21.13]
In this reprint from the August 2002 issue of Game Developer magazine, Spider-Man dev Jamie Fristrom (Energy Hook) writes about what went right and what went wrong with the game's development process.
Design, Postmortem, Programming, Production, Exclusive, GD Mag Exclusive

Postmortem: Pangalore's Knightly Adventure 3
by Array [06.21.13]
A 3D Unity MMO for smartphones and social networks -- one which has cloud-based saving and social elements? Oh, and it's the company's first game ever -- developed across two continents? No big deal.
Business/Marketing, Postmortem, Production, Art, Smartphone/Tablet

Postmortem - Sony Santa Monica's God of War: Ascension 11
by Array [06.19.13]
In this postmortem from the final issue of Game Developer, Sony Santa Monica senior producer Whitney Wade and director of internal development Chacko Sonny discuss bringing multiplayer to the God of War experience.
Business/Marketing, Design, Postmortem, Programming, Production, Console/PC, GD Mag Exclusive

Postmortem: Appy Entertainment's Animal Legends 7
by Array [05.06.13]
From building a flexible, low-cost server back-end to launching big in China, Animal Legends offered the team at Appy Entertainment a huge number of challenges -- which are fully outlined in this candid postmortem.
Business/Marketing, Design, Postmortem, Production, Art, China

A Mini-Postmortem Roundup 5
by Array [04.29.13]
Game Developer magazine has put together a collection of four shorter postmortems, each for a game developed for a different platform: Muteki's Dragon Fantasy (mobile), Subset Games's FTL (PC), KIXEYE's War Commander (social), and ]['s Dyad (console).
Business/Marketing, GD Mag, Smartphone/Tablet, Indie, Console/PC, Game Developer Magazine, Production, Postmortem, Design, GD Mag Exclusive

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http://www.gamasutra.com/features/postmortem/

gamasutra, game, game design, post mortem, postmortem

15+ Analyses, Post Mortems, and Game Design Docs by Michael James Williams on Sep 19th 2013

http://gamedev.tutsplus.com/articles/roundups/analyses-post-mortems-and-game-design-docs/

You can’t beat learning from personal experience… but learning from someone else’s experience is often less painful. In this post, I’ve collated some of my favourite post mortems, game design documents, and design analyses for mainstream games, from Mario, Sonic, and Zelda to MGS2, The Sims Social, and Portal.

Level Design In The Legend Of Zelda

Post_Mortems_Analyses_Game_Design_Docs_level_design_zelda

The NES was the Wild West of game development, I thought, lawless and free. [...] As it turns out, I was totally wrong! Instead of finding something outdated with a ton of nostalgia value, I found an excellent primer in the fundamentals of non-linear game design.

Ratchet and Clank Developer Commentary

Tony Garcia and Mike Stout play through the Ratchet and Clank games they worked on, discussing the creation of the games as they do.
There are hours of these videos to watch, so here are a few moments that stuck out for me:

On focus testing: They don’t dumb down elements because focus testers can’t figure out how to use them, they cut them out when they realise they can’t afford to put in the time and resources to get the resources right.
On side-quests and mini-games: “If the player didn’t sign up for the thing you’re designing, you really shouldn’t make that thing super hard.”
On focus testing levels in “block form”: It’s really hard to get testers to look past unfinished art and test the gameplay alone; it invites simple criticism of “it just looks unfinished”.
On puzzle design: It’s more important for a puzzle to make the player feel smart than it for the puzzle to require the player to be smart. (Also touched on in this video.)
On hard vs. fun: “It’s really easy to make something hard, but making something that’s fun and difficult is different.”
On pathfinding: Tony discusses getting the Tyhrranoids to behave.
On jobs: Mike and Tony discuss the state of the games industry, and getting a job in it.

Chrono Trigger’s Design Secrets

Post_Mortems_Analyses_Game_Design_Docs_chrono_trigger

By allowing the players to travel freely through time and space, the developers opened up the game world to exploration. Although most optional narrative sections are inaccessible until the player finds the Epoch – a time machine which also allows for fast travel through the game world – the player is allowed to find their own way through the main narrative with minimal interference.

The Light of Day (Jill of the Jungle)

Post_Mortems_Analyses_Game_Design_Docs_thelightofday

The player’s mechanical actions – a slow climb, gaining a small bit of ground every time she hits her jump key and manages to grab the next power-up token – mirror the protagonist, jill’s situation. and central to the experience is upwards motion (reinforcing the metaphor, each token is an arrow pointing up). jill is trying to climb out of the underground and into the light; the player is jumping her avatar higher and higher to unlock the level exit.

Also see to the right, hold on tight and low overhead, each about the design of Super Mario Bros.

Lessons From Doom

Post_Mortems_Analyses_Game_Design_Docs_doom2_top_shot

The lesson for future games might be this: make your technology extremely simple, easy to modify, ship it with a diverse enough pool of content that people can extend it to create a variety of settings and styles, and promote the sharing of this content as a way to add value to your game.

I know this quote is about Doom, but I can’t help but think of Minecraft.

The Invisible Hand of Super Metroid

Post_Mortems_Analyses_Game_Design_Docs_invisible_hand_super_metroid

Whenever a Metroid player aquires a new power-up, her mind races back in time in a way not unlike what happens at a turning point in a movie. When a secret is revealed we are forced back through the story to mentally review everything we’ve seen so far, sometimes changing the interpretation of entire scenes. So that’s why Obi-Wan was so worried about Luke facing Vader. What did this change? This happens in Metroid too.

[MORE at http://gamedev.tutsplus.com/articles/roundups/analyses-post-mortems-and-game-design-docs/ ]

analysis, docs, documents, game, game design, game design docs, post mortem, postmortem

A Mini-Postmortem Roundup

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/191265/a_minipostmortem_roundup.php

by [Business/Marketing, Design, Postmortem, Production, Game Developer Magazine, Console/PC, Indie, Smartphone/Tablet, GD Mag, GD Mag Exclusive]

April 29, 2013

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A reprint from the April 2013 issue of Gamasutra sister publication Game Developer magazine, this article rounds up several mini-postmortems for a variety of high-quality indie titles.

If there is one thing we've learned over the last year at Game Developer, it's that dev studios need to stay current on every potential game platform out there, or risk missing opportunities to reach the widest possible audience.

That's why we've put together a collection of four shorter postmortems, each for a game developed for a different platform: Muteki's Dragon Fantasy (mobile), Subset Games's Faster Than Light (PC), KIXEYE's War Commander (social), and RSBLSB's Dyad (console).

So whether you're a single-platform dev wondering if the grass really is greener, or you just want to learn more about what went right and wrong with a handful of standout games from last year, read on for the mini-mortems.

Mobile: Dragon Fantasy

By Adam Rippon and Bryan Sawler

We started on Dragon Fantasy on April 1, 2011 as a tribute to Adam's late father, Tom. Adam started making the game as a way to cope with the depression and stress in his life. While it probably wasn't particularly healthy to be as obsessed as he was with one project, he sure did get a lot of work done in a surprisingly short amount of time!

The first chapter of Dragon Fantasy launched on iOS on August 23, 2011.

What Went Right

1. Regular Content Updates

The game was a modest success, and we immediately set to work on adding more content to it, hoping that by continually adding new content we could keep sales consistent.

While we weren't hugely financially successful from all of our free content updates, the goodwill and reputation that it earned us was a huge benefit. We've made a lot of friends in the indie developer community, which has been a huge help. We learned a lot about how to market our game via shows and via the press.

Also, we bumped into Sony several times during the development of the game, and I believe that it was our dedication and cult-favorite status that led them to decide to include Dragon Fantasy Book II in the Pub Fund. Had we put out chapter one and called it a day, I wouldn't be writing this article right now!

2. Great Press Coverage

If there's one thing you absolutely need to have on your side, it's great reviews -- and we got lots of 'em. We enjoy a 4.5 star rating on both iOS and Android, despite the perpetually entitled rage of the "OMG WHY ISN'T IT FREE" crowd.

We got great coverage from RPGamer, whose editor-in-chief absolutely loves the game.

Joystiq gave us some great shout-outs. And our crowning achievement was our interview with Kotaku Australia -- Adam has a copy of it printed and hung up on his wall, and his mom even mailed a copy of it to his grandma. (It was that good.)

Apparently it wasn't that common for Kotaku U.S. to run Kotaku Australia's articles, but they ran this one. Oh, and the sales bump from that beautiful article? Very, very nice. Great press goes a long way.

3. Good Tech Helps

Dragon Fantasy may not look like it's a super high-end engine, what with all the ginormous pixels and whatnot, but you'd be surprised! We've always rolled our own engine and tools, and the work on Dragon Fantasy was a serious boon to the production of our very powerful and very easy-to-use UI system.

While we didn't make a ton of money on the game itself, we did make a fair bit by using the tech we built for the game on other contract projects. We've done numerous paid projects for larger clients using our MuTech engine, even going so far as to use it in a political news app!

And despite being reviewed by dozens of blogs, not a single one noticed that it wasn't a native iPhone app. We're pretty proud of that. So while we probably could have just done Dragon Fantasy with some off-the-shelf engine, there are some serious benefits to building your own cross-platform, application-agnostic engine if you have the means.

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