Why Do I Make Video Games?

Last night, I watched Video Games: The Movie on Netflix. If you haven't seen it, check it out, because it's a great film that every video game player and developer should see. Watching it made me realize that I needed to ask myself the question again - why do I make video games? It sounds dumb to ask, like, "why do I go into work every morning", but I think it's an important one to continually ask yourself to avoid just doing things automatically. 

I wanted to challenge a point that was brought up by a developer in the movie, which was that video games are a form of escapism. You play them to get away from your "boring" life to do something amazing. This is not why I make video games. I've used games as an escape before, and it never ends well. Plus, if your life is going well, and you were playing games as a way to escape from things, then why would you continue to play games?

Zynga's founder, Mark Pincus,  at one point used the phrase, "surprise and delight", to describe their games and their shopping. While I'm not a fan of anything that Zynga does, I think the idea that you want to surprise and delight your players is one of the reasons why I make video games. I love watching Let's Play videos of people playing through my content and their surprised gasps, laughter at easter eggs I've put in, or reactions to serious story moments that I've put in. One of my hopes with the content that I make is that it'll help make someone's day, give them a story to tell other people, or at least give them something to remember and smile about during the day.

One of the other reasons why I make games is the idea of trying to have a discussion about the every day things that we all go through, and maybe even try to glorify what others might consider "boring", or subjects that people would just want to escape from, like depression. One of my all time favorite story arcs that I had almost full freedom to work on start to finish was for Dark Astoria in City of Heroes. I know I bring it up a lot, but that's because I love it so much. It was a story arc about a god of Death trying to destroy the world, and he did that by tainting a person's memories and making all of their good memories seem empty, while the bad ones were given more weight. The story, for how over the top it sounds, at its heart was about depression - what it is, what it does to a person, and overcoming it.

I wanted to end this post with a long quote from what a player wrote in response to Dark Astoria. I smile every time I read it, because this is why I make games - for the players. If I can make a game that gives someone a good memory, something to help improve their lives, bring them together with their friends, help them deal with whatever circumstances they're in, or even see something from a different point of view, then I consider that a win. I want everything I do with games to deal with things in life, to help someone embrace more of life, not seek to escape it.

Anyway, here is a portion of this player's feedback on Dark Astoria, written before City of Heroes was shut down.

Throughout all of this, I read nothing about the new Dark Astoria and refused to be spoiled on anything. Until the announcement, my goal was to lead her through the story arcs all the way to level 50 for an eventual return to her hometown to fight Mot. After the announcement, I couldn't log into the game at all, and let several weeks go by without touching any of the characters. A few people, especially Golden Girl, had said there was still time get her to Dark Astoria as an incarnate, and I finally decided to try it, to forego the story arcs I'd hoped to run and instead grind her from 32 to 50 with just a few hours a day over a few weeks. With some help from the forums, she finally got to level 50, ran the Ramiel arc and then took the call from Captain Nolan to investigate an epidemic of murders and suicides in Peregrine Island. Well, over this past weekend she defeated Mot. And never has a video game left me in tears before.

DARK ASTORIA SPOILERS!

For one thing, it's even more amazing a story than I'd allowed myself to hear people say (i.e. "the new Dark Astoria is amazing, especially..." "lalala can't hear you!"), and it's a more perfect an ending to the game as any game I've ever played. The message about hope overcoming despair has never been more relevant, and as someone who's struggled all my life with depression, the metaphor of Mot as depression, especially how it drains the joy out of your memories and leaves you feeling like your whole life has never been any different, rang painfully true. For a story about a cursed town and a Lovecraftean horror ushering in the apocalypse, it turned into one of the uplifting, triumphant stories I've ever played, ever seen, or even read. The scene with the huge army of practically every NPC in the game gathered to fight against the Pantheon left me frantically hitting the screenshot key and just elated at the sight of it all, every arc in the game coming together at the last to fight for hope. Jim and Fusionette, Shadowstar and Sunstorm, Keith Nance and Jenni Adair, even Katie Hannon (one of my other big alts is a Cabal sorceress gone MAGI heroine, so I practically cheered aloud to see the Cabal represented in the fight against Mot)... it's like everyone in the game came out for one last, epic sendoff. If anyone hasn't played the DA arcs yet and has a level 50 character, please do so. If CoH has to end, that image alone is as beautiful an ending as could be asked for.

But with Astorian Shade, the story took on a life and power I'd never expected. I had no idea what the new DA was going to involve, I just drew on the old badge lore for her story - and yet the two stories intertwined in ways that left me just gaping at the screen, trembling with the emotion she'd naturally feel before finally catching my breath and daring to hit the keys again.

When Heather Townshend's story ended with the revelation of her role at the warehouse, I just sat there for half an hour, reeling with what it'd mean to Shade, how such a conversation would go. The game leaves it ambiguous whether Heather actually tells your character anything, but it all flashed in my mind with hardly a conscious thought. Heather had found hope in Shade saving both Kadabra and Sigil, only to have it snatched away again when she admitted to the heroine why she'd come back to Astoria. Shade's look of shocked betrayal, shaking her head wildly when asked what's wrong, and Heather's guilt-stricken realization that all this time she's been working with the ghost of someone who died there, that the screams haunting her dreams were probably Shade's own screams, her stammering attempt to apologize only to be answered with Shade furiously shouting to leave her alone (not even really out of anger, but from being so vividly reminded of something she'd tried so hard to forget)... all of it came together to make Heather's almost suicidal trip through the warehouse in a vain search for redemption, and then finding it in Ajax's reassurance that her life has meaning, that Shade's going to need her help to defeat Mot, incredibly moving.

Of course, everyone who's played the DA story knows what's coming, and that Heather's just the tip of the iceberg. The big moment, and another one I had no idea was coming at all, was the revelation in Cimerora of how the seal ended up beneath Astoria. Her whole afterlife had been driven by vengeance against the Pantheon and Mot for what happened in Astoria, only to find that she was the reason for it all. Now, to give the future a fighting chance against Mot, she'd have to condemn her town, her family, everyone she knew, and her past self to die. Heather's guilt became nothing against the enormity of that decision: Heather never would have been in that situation at all had Shade herself not sealed Astoria's fate centuries before. The question finally arose of what's really driving her, because vengeance no longer even made sense. She couldn't destroy her own life to make Mot pay for destroying her life. The only reason to make such a choice was to give up revenge in favor of saving the world, and accepting Astoria's fall as the price.

I'd never, ever imagined that plot twist coming, and it changed my original character into something far more than I'd planned, into a tragic, messianic figure. She'd learned at the end of her AE arc that blind vengeance only serves Mot's purpose. She'd learned from Aaron Thiery that vengeance and justice are two different things. But only now had she really learned that a third possibility exists, understanding and forgiveness, and when Hua Tov later asked her whether she thought he could be forgiven, she honestly said yes and comforted him before he died. And within a few more missions, the game had sent her back to Heather, this time understanding the terrible choices people sometimes have to make and so more compassionate and willing to listen to her.

And then there's the finale. Learning about David Hazen's life and struggle against Mot (and I really admire the sheer bravery of the journal addressing the question of how God fits into a setting where ancient deities threaten the world and can be killed with magic swords, as David himself asks that very question), saving Detective Hopp and Bellerose (and kudos to Hopp's story for subtly bringing Roy Cooling's arc back and showing that things have started to change because of it), and eventually having the whole world placing its faith in her, cheering her on as all the world's heroes and many of its villains rally to fight together in a massive war against the Banished Pantheon... I knew she was always going to defeat Mot, and then ascend to the afterlife, but I never dreamed of such a sight as this...

And all I can say is thank you. Thank you to Doctor Aeon for writing a story that did so much more for my character than I had ever imagined for her, that gave her a shining moment unlike anything I'd dared to hope she might have. I have two other characters who also worked hard to reach their proper endings, Sparkly Soldier Yuki in the Moonfire TF to arrest Arakhn, and New World Daughter in the Katie Hannon TF to reconcile with the Cabal and defeat the Red Caps, but Shade's story is the one that's going to haunt and inspire me for the rest of my life. Thank you.

The Art of Scoping

Scoping can be an ugly word in the game industry. When someone says, "scope it back" to a creative person, it can be taken as, "I know you want to make the Mona Lisa of game design, but you need to tone it down and make it more like the five dollar Target knock-off, thanks." However, knowing how to scope well can turn your piece of content from a mediocre work to a work of brilliance, and it is not a task you should rely on your producer or lead to do. Here are some things that I've learned about how to scope properly.

The first part of scoping is to prepare for it early. In a pitch meeting a few years ago on City of Heroes, I was asked by Matt Miller what part of my content could be cut due to time constrains. The question baffled me, as I had written an air-tight story in which everything absolutely had to happen, and if time didn't permit, well then I would make it permit. I'd put in the hours to make sure this work for brilliance happened. It's important to note that at this time I was single, and hadn't learned the lesson that another designer, Joe Morrissey, taught me, which was, "Learn how to get everything done during work hours"

"Yes, we can do it in 5 days. Of course, that's working for 24 hours a day for 5 days."

The guys over at Extra Credits have a phrase for scope, which they called the "minimal viable product", but I think that word sends shivers down the spine of designers who think that means you've done "just enough" to ship. Nobody ever wants to just do enough to get by. I prefer to think of it as, how much time do you want the player to spend playing your content? Also, let's include the idea they're having fun during this and that I'm not just wasting their time.

Pictured above, player's time that bad games have wasted. Sorry for the graphic image.

I'll give an example from a design I've made. I wanted the content to be about thirty to forty minutes long. The content was split into 5 sections: prologue, Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, epilogue. Act 2 was where the meat of the content was going to take place, where I would do the most complicated scripting/design work and where environment art would have to make the most new assets. Act 2 was going to be about 15 minutes out of the 40 minute game play. Everything aside from Act 2 would be about 5 minutes of game play.

As an side, some people may disagree with me, but I think it's important to aim for a set time you want players to be playing your content. It's really easy to just do what you think is cool in five different places, and then end up with things being wildly different flow-wise. Your first act is 30 minutes, your main act is 5, and your epilogue is 25 minutes. Knowing how much time each section is supposed to take helps you adjust your design early when those times aren't correct.

These remaining acts were meant to be visually appealing by re-using assets in a new manner and by doing scripting/design tricks to make it feel great. All of these methods were safe, proven, and easy to implement. The bulk of my risks were going to be put into Act 2. The risks were that environment art wouldn't have the time to support everything design wanted to do, and that the new design attempt would end up failing and not being fun or being too hard to support 15 minutes of it.

My plan was that anything cut in Act 2 would have its time dispersed into the previous acts. If something failed in Act 2 and it turned out we could only do 10 minutes of content, I could easily add a fun encounter or contact dialog in Act 1 or Act 3 to make up for the content. I had also written the outline of the story so that this could be done without the story suffering for it. It's important to note this added content was planned to not be just "filler", but to actually be interesting.

In the end, the design I mentioned above worked pretty well. I had actually put too much into Act 2 and its initial game play was something around 20-25 minutes. I cut a few things very early on, which at the time, I felt we probably could support. However, when everything was said and done, the entire piece of content flowed way better with those cuts and allowed us to really focus. The important thing about the project was that neither myself nor the environment artist working with me had to crunch at all, and we never felt pressured because we both knew that we had plenty of options if something had to be cut.

They call me The Cutter. ... this was the first thing that appeared on google when I searched "the cutter". Sorry.

This is the importance of scope. Scoping is not about avoiding taking risks or doing ambitious things, it's about doing all those things in a smart way. You just need to view it in a more strategic sense, because players aren't going to see what you wanted to do, they're going to see what you actually did.

I scoffed at the ideas that Matt Miller and Joe Morrissey told me about scope and work. Now, as a married man with a kid, I can see the importance of it. Planning scope in your projects gives you and your team confidence in your plans. If producers and leads know that you are a person who gets things done in the 8:30 - 5:30 work day, then they'll have that much more confidence when you give them time estimates for things. If you say, "it'll take me 5 days", they know you mean it's without crunch and with back up plans made to ensure that will happen.

Knowing that people can take you at your word for planning is a much better feeling than the pat on the back you get for "sticking it out" to crunch through something, trust me.

And not crunching means I get to see this little guy every day. Not pictured: him pooping.

A Day In the Life of a McDesigner (April 2014)

Hi everyone! As usual, it has been a while since I've posted. Many things have kept me away from blogging. The biggest thing has been the birth of my adorable baby boy, James Gerard McCann! He's nearly six months old and is completely adorable... which I can safely say now that he's sleeping and not crying.

A while back on twitter, I asked people what they wanted to hear from me as a game designer. One of the things that came up is, what exactly do you do  during the day? This has come up a lot in interviews that either I've done or that other people have done, so I figured it would be interesting to  post a blog about a random day in my life at work for people to read. There will be a lot of these, as days tend to be varied.

So, without further ado, here is an outline of a day in the life of a McDesigner. This one comes from a long time ago, before my son was born, around April 2014. Keep in mind that since I'm pulling this from a while back, this may be less "a day of" and more of, "Sean mashed together several memories and is calling it a day."

The main goal of the day was to pitch the episode, Capture the Flag, for Star Trek Online's Delta Rising expansion. In the morning before the meeting, I was going over the pitch idea with the environment artist, Adam Flores, who would be working with me on it.

A few days before this, I was given the times that I would get for support from environment (Adam) and also how long I would be given to work on the episode.  I was given the general outline of what story points had to happen in the quest and asked to fill in the blanks.  As a little, "bonus quest", our producers asked if I could shave the environment time down to give Adam extra time to support an episode that was already going to be big.As another side quest, the mission involved a "Super" version of a bad guy, and I was asked to replicate and improve upon a cool fight cutscene I did in the previous release.

This was an episode that was going to be tricky, as my wife was ready to give birth at any moment, so there was no guarantee that I would finish it. So, that morning, I finished making a very clear documentation which included drawn maps, of what the mission would look like. I had to make sure that someone who wasn't me could theoretically come in and pick up wherever I left off.

During the process, I had worked together with Adam to figure out how to use his time. Together, we came up with a proposal for the environment that would take significantly less time, but would still give us a great result and allow him more time to work on the other task. The work he would do would be to do big, sweeping material swaps on areas to make things feel different, along with lighting and propping the areas with pre-existing assets. Anyone familiar with the episode knows that we took a pre-existing interior kit and put different materials on it to look new.

Before the meeting, Adam and I double checked the document written to make sure we were on the same page. The meeting itself had the leads from the various disicplines that would be involved, along with the producer in charge of the episodes as a whole. I had the doc up on a projector describing what I wanted to do with the episode and outlined what each part of the mission would be. For the most part, the meeting went well. The leads and producers had some feedback regarding what could be potentially risky for the mission, such as the big fight scene and a boss fight I wanted to do, and I agreed to get the risky things done first in the event that I had to take Paternity leave. We set a deadline of three days until our first whitebox playable, where the leads and I sit down and run through a very basic version of the mission to see how it feels from a very high level.

Once the meeting was over, the rest of my day was spent whiteboxing the mission. This means that I went through and took existing assets to piece together the mission map and set up the flow of the ground portion of the mission from room to room; what encounters would be in this room, how the player would go from level to level, etc. Since I had written up a clear doc with a map, all I had to do was follow what I already planned out.

I also set up a mission design outline in the game, things like titles for mission objectives, how they would flow into one another. During this time, Adam was finishing up his previous tasks, this way I would be a day or two ahead of him to get everything orderly before he came in to art it up.

By the end of the day, the whitebox of the mission was complete. The task itself was pretty easy since everything was concrete and agreed upon by the higher ups. Adam had a good idea of what the art should be, and had looked over everything I set up and gave it the thumb's up that everything could be accomplished by him in 5 days time.

With that finished, I left the studio and figured out what I would do the next day - set up the scripting for the cool fight scene people wanted, and then actually set up the framing and shots for the cutscene, then finally put it all together and tweak everything to work. Long story short, my next day was going to be totally different from my previous day, which tends to be the norm in this line of work.

And that was a day in the life of a McDesigner. I hope this was only slightly boring, mostly interesting, and maybe a little exciting. Please feel free to leave feedback about what you all thought of this post, and I'll do my best to keep posting these more often!