Week 1 – We begin production!

Posted by Matt Arnold on Feb 14, 2011 in Facerocker Games | 20 comments

So today marks the first official day of production on my first game, an iPhone game we hope to be done with in about 4-5 months. To be fair, its not exactly my first game – I worked at Disney Interactive Studios for about two and a half years. I started as an intern, moved up to Assistant, and then became an Associate Producer. I worked on a load of games during that time, games most of you probably never have heard of, nor will or should ever play: Tinkerbell, Phineas and Ferb DS, Wizards of Waverly Place DS, Club Penguin Herbert’s Revenge, Phineas and Ferb Ride Again, Sonny with a Chance DS, Toy Story 3 DS, and Club Penguin Game Day. As well as two titles that I left mid project that are not out yet. One of which, I was given the incredible chance to be the lead acting Producer on.

It is not exactly the path most indie developers take, but it’s one that I am happy I did. The publisher side is very different from living on the developer side, especially one that owns all the IPs being worked on like Disney. I learned many valuable lessons that I feel many people who jump into making games don’t get a chance to. I worked on very tight schedules with low budgets (though budgets I would kill for now). I had to make compromises every step of the way, as well as coordinate various departments of the company – marketing, art, design, tech –to move towards a similar goal. I had to be pragmatic while still trying to make the best game possible under the circumstances. That doesn’t even begin to get into the issues of dealing with licenses, timelines provided by Disney TV Network, and tons of other real issues that don’t allow you to simply make whatever game you want.

With all those skills under my belt, it was time for me to set out and try to make my own game. My bosses all had experiences on the dev side of things, and were very supportive in me jumping over the fence. Five months ago, the YouTube Road Trip came up, and it was as good of an excuse as any to leave my job to start up Facerocker.

Over a year ago, Freddie and I had been talking about various iPhone games. The problem was we had too many ideas and weren’t committing to any of them. One night, we were at Wurstküche down the street (super hip sausage joint) and I said “whatever game we come up with right now, we are doing it.” We came up with an idea, and that was that. You simply have to do it. You can’t just keep coming up with “better” ideas. The main reason is, the idea is far removed from execution; even more so in games than film. You have no idea how it will actually turn out.

That was a long time ago, while we were still talking about what to do with our company, and where we wanted to go. When I left Disney, I started designing the old game idea. I then broke my rule. I thought of a better game. One that was probably over scoped, a bit too ambitious, but it was the sort of game I wanted to make. So screw it, that is what I am making now.

Many of you may not know what “starting production” means. I know I didn’t two years ago. Even on the publisher side, I was still fuzzy on all the details of game production. Heck – I am still flying by the seat of my pants. Movie buffs at this point, have a good understanding of the film process. Film schools, DVD extras, newspapers, blogs, and media in general have made that information easy to find and understand. The game making process is a lot different, even between games. As I am learning, and making my first game, I wanted to try to share some of that with you all.

People see games as being made in chunks – with art done at the beginning, and levels being constructed one at a time. Gamers often complain about game features, and ask why this “simple” feature couldn’t be added, not understanding just how hard that is to do. Something as simple as a store system or dialog system are often things that need to be decided and cemented immediately, and can be nearly impossible to change once the engine is in place.

So starting this week, I will be updating a weekly blog. I want to be as transparent as possible as to what is going on with our game, and how games are actually made. To be fair, it will be of how THIS game is made.

It won’t always be interesting to look at. Game making can often be boring as hell. It can also be incredibly awesome when you get something working. Whatever it is, I will do my best to show you what we are doing. I will get into more details about the game itself as it comes along, and as I am comfortable showing it off.

So to start, I want to explain the things I did in the past two months. As, while the game may start production today, I was working on it for quite a while before that. Here are the main aspects of my pre-production.

Pre-Production

1. Designing the Game / Making the GDD.

A GDD is a Game Design Document. It like the script of a movie. However, the GDD contains all aspects of the game in document form. All systems, mechanics, story, modes, level breakdowns, etc. At Disney, the GDD was very important, and the developer had to update the GDD every so often to reflect what they have done.

That is not the case with me. I don’t think it is the case with many developers anymore. I wrote up the GDD for the past 2 months. It is about 40 pages, and contains all the major elements of the game. It was a good way for me to figure out the game, and the basic building blocks before starting to make it. I don’t think I will ever update it again.

Writing the stuff down on paper is really a waste of time at this point. I kept updating out of habit, but then I realized it was far more productive to just start building the game. Anything that needs to be done on paper – enemy charts, level design etc – can use their own documents. Also, GDD’s are incredibly non-interactive. So it is only useful up to a point. Using Excel is actually great for a lot of stat driven design as you can make interactive charts. I was working on a basketball game a while back, and one of the guys there made a great Excel Sheet with all the stats of all the players and all the teams. You could easily change a single stat and have it update along the entire sheet.

Still, almost every game starts with a GDD. I will probably post mine after the game comes out. You can see how it all started, how many holes are in it, how poorly I write, and how different it is from the final project.

2. Figuring out the game engine.

The game engine is what the game is actually made on. Source and Unreal are probably the most famous engines. The engine compiles and groups many basic, similar aspects of game design that many games share. Simple things like AI, particle effects, placing 3D objects, physics, UI, etc. Trying to find what engine fits what you need to do in your game is important. However, even after getting an engine, a developer will often need to rewrite or add elements to the engine. I am guessing Enslaved had elements in their game that required adding things to the Unreal Engine. It is clearly not the same game as Gears of War.

The game is being built on UNITY 3D. It is a full featured 3D engine that is very easy to develop for the iPhone and Android. I picked it mostly because I had a lot of experience with it in school, and it is very fast in regards to quick iterations and build process. I can drop a few things in a level, tweak a variable and try it. I will go into detail about that as the production goes on. Iteration is the single most important aspect to game design, and it is what separates it from the production of all other art forms.

I spent the last 2 months familiarizing myself with UNITY 3D. I blasted through tutorials, built a test level, played around with some basic elements of my game. However, I can only do so much. So it was time to build my team.

3. Hiring

I needed to find one great programmer, who could be the lead on the project, work for very little money, but long hours since I am trying to get this done in a short time, and be within driving distance. OH! And I wanted him to be competent in game design, and easy to collaborate with as I wanted a creative partner or sorts. My favorite aspect of filmmaking and game creation has always been creative collaboration with friends. I didn’t want a hired gun. I wanted a guy who wanted to work with me, and hopefully continue on with future projects.

So it was pretty much impossible. However, from some struck of luck I found an awesome dude, nearby, who is incredibly talented, and far more interested in making a good game and a finishing a product than he is simply getting a paycheck or adding a notch to his resume. The super awesome dude’s name is Morgan McCool. Seriously – McCool.

The guys at Corridor Digital will be helping me with art work an UI down the line, Freddie will help out with sound and music, and I may drop some money to get some extra help when it comes to finishing the art work.

Hiring is the worst part of the process, especially when your company is a start-up, you don’t have previous projects to show, and you don’t have money to spend. I am very lucky to have the people I have. They are talented and great people to work with.

If you do start a game, make sure it is with people you WANT to work with. Game making gets tough. The hours are long, you spend a lot of time on a computer, and there’s a lot of frustration. However, my experience thus far, it is also the most fun I have ever had when I do it with the right people.

Blog Updates Every Week

Make sure to check back each week as I will delve into what we are actually doing that week, and hopefully will give you some cool glimpses at our game, and the game making process. By the end, I hope everyone enjoyed themselves and learned along with me. Then, hopefully, we will have a kick ass game for you guys to play. Then I start all over again, and learn from my mistakes, and make an ever better one.