Game.Developer.2009.09.pdf
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Game Developer - September 2009
TOOL BOX:
PIXELACTIVE'S CITYSCAPE 1.7
VOL16NO8
SEPTEMBER2009
THE LEADING GAME INDUSTRY MAGAZINE
CONTENTS.0909
VOLUME 16 NUMBER 8
POSTMORTEM
DEPARTMENTS
22
KINGSISLE ENTERTAINMENT'S WIZARD101
W
IZARD
101 is an MMO with a unique business model. The game not
only offers the free-to-play (with microtransactions) model, but also
a subscription alongside it. Texas-based KingsIsle shares with us the
very honest ups and downs of developing a new MMO, from the boons
of free trials to botched UI.
By James Nance
2
GAME PLAN
By Brandon Sheffield
[EDITORIAL]
Clone Versus Genre
4
HEADS UP DISPLAY
[NEWS]
Vintage computing tools,
Game Developer
advisory board
update, free
Game Career Guide
, and more.
FEATURES
36
TOOL BOX
By Marc-André Guindon
[REVIEW]
PixelActive's CityScape 1.7
7
ALTERNATIVEGEOMETRY
Polygons rule the game development roost, there's no question of
that. But that doesn't mean voxels, NURBS, and other methods of
achieving non-polygonal geometry have nothing to offer. This article
investigates the state of the art and how you can try to implement
non-polygonal 3D into your game, or at least your pipeline.
By Bijan Forutanpour
39
PIXEL PUSHER
By Steve Theodore
[ART]
Jumping to Occlusions
43
THE INNER PRODUCT
By Noel Llopis
[PROGRAMMING]
Data-Oriented Design
47
DESIGN OF THE TIMES
By Damion Schubert
[DESIGN]
Resonance
15
DEMYSTIFYING MATRIX LAYOUTS
Matrices tend to live in shaders, physics systems, and other time-
critical portions of games. These important structures are often
difficult to optimize and design, so here the authors show best
practices for getting the most out of your matrix operations on
modern systems, both console and PC.
By Jelle Van Der Beek and
Arjan Janssen
50
AURAL FIXATION
By Rob Bridgett
[SOUND]
Stereo Downmixing
56
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT
By Matthew Wasteland
[HUMOR]
My Story Isn't Dumb
COVER ART: JOE MITCH
GAME DEVELOPER | XXXXX XXXX
GAME PLAN
//
BRANDON SHEFFIELD
www.gdmag.com
Think Services, 600 Harrison St., 6th Fl.,
San Francisco, CA 94107
t: 415.947.6000 f: 415.947.6090
CLONE VERSUS GENRE
WHEN ART IMITATES ART
SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES
FOR INFORMATION, ORDER QUESTIONS, AND
ADDRESS CHANGES
t: 800.250.2429 f: 847.763.9606
e:
gamedeveloper@halldata.com
EDITORIAL
PUBLISHER
Simon Carless l
scarless@gdmag.com
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Brandon Sheffield
l
bsheffield@gdmag.com
PRODUCTION EDITOR
Jeffrey Fleming l
jfleming@gdmag.com
ART DIRECTOR
Joseph Mitch l
jmitch@gdmag.com
SENIOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Jill Duffy l
jduffy@gdmag.com
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Jesse Harlin l
jharlin@gdmag.com
Steve Theodore l
stheodore@gdmag.com
Noel Llopis l
nllopis@gdmag.com
Soren Johnson l
sjohnson@gdmag.com
Damion Schubert l
dschubert@gdmag.com
ADVISORY BOARD
Hal Barwood Designer-at-Large
Mick West Independent
Brad Bulkley Neversoft
Clinton Keith High Moon Studios
Bijan Forutanpour Sony Online Entertainment
Mark DeLoura Independent
Carey Chico Pandemic Studios
ADVERTISING SALES
GLOBAL SALES DIRECTOR
Aaron Murawski e:
amurawski@think-services.com
t: 415.947.6227
MEDIA ACCOUNT MANAGER
John Malik Watson e:
jmwatson@think-services.com
t: 415.947.6224
GLOBAL ACCOUNT MANAGER, EDUCATION
AND RECRUITMENT
Gina Gross e:
ggross@think-services.com
t: 415.947.6241
COORDINATOR, EDUCATION AND RECRUITMENT
Rafael Vallin e:
rvallin@think-services.com
t: 415.947.6223
ADVERTISING PRODUCTION
PRODUCTION MANAGER
Robert Steigleider e:
rsteigleider@ubm-us.com
REPRINTS
WRIGHT'S REPRINTS
Ryan Pratt e:
rpratt@
wrightsreprints.com
t: 877.652.5295
THINK SERVICES
CEO THINK SERVICES
Philip Chapnick
GROUP DIRECTOR
Kathy Schoback
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Cliff Scorso
AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT
GROUP DIRECTOR
Kathy Henry
e:
khenry@techinsights.com
DIRECTOR
Kristi Cunningham
e:
kcunningham@techinsights.com
LIST RENTAL
Merit Direct LLC t: 914.368.1000
MARKETING
SERVICES MARKETING COORDINATOR
Laura Robison
e:
lrobison@think-services.com
UBM TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
David Levin
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
Scott Mozarsky
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
David Wein
CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER
Kevin Prinz
CORPORATE SENIOR VP SALES
Anne Marie Miller
SENIOR VP, STRATEGIC DEV. AND BUSINESS ADMIN.
Pat Nohilly
SENIOR VP, MANUFACTURING
Marie Myers
WE OFTEN TALK ABOUT “CLONES” OF GAMES, OR COPIES
of ideas—but at a certain point, if an idea is copied,
expanded, and massaged enough times, nobody says
clone anymore. When does an idea become large
enough to lose its own identity, and flourish into a full-
blown genre? Perhaps it’s better said that the idea gains
a new identity, one that’s more generally applicable.
Most recently, we stopped referring to “T
OWER
D
EFENSE
clones,” and began discussing tower defense
games as an entire genre, which has since been
expanded to include a number of variations, by
companies as diverse as Square Enix and PopCap.
“D
OOM
clones” stopped appearing around the time
Q
UAKE
came out, and we started to deal with the FPS as
a genre. B
EJEWELED
, itself inspired by earlier matching
puzzlers like C
OLUMNS
, is no longer copied per se, we
now have the “match-three” genre, which includes the
robust P
UZZLE
Q
UEST
in its ranks.
than it is different. Though the platform, characters,
and controls will have all changed significantly, the
core concept is still quite reminiscent of the original.
So how will my game be labeled?
I AM NOT A REPLICANT
»
So where is the line drawn? How much is “enough”
concept evolution to make a game a step forward
within a genre shard versus being labeled a clone?
I say “shard,” because as games evolve, genres
themselves become more granularly defined. Though
T
ETRIS
, S
OKOBAN
, S
UDOKU
, and B
EJEWELED
are all puzzle
games, you wouldn’t paint them with the same brush.
Falling-block puzzle, action puzzle, brain puzzle, and
match-three are the more correct terms.
S
OKOBAN
(a game in which you push boxes into
the correct areas, trying not to trap yourself) is an
interesting one, because most games based on its
concept are in fact true clones, to the
point that they use the S
OKOBAN
name in
their titles, and reuse the puzzle maps
from the original. Variants like C
HIP
’
S
C
HALLENGE
and B
OULDER
D
ASH
seem
to escape the “clone” distinction by
adding different goals and scenarios.
Then we have genre-defining games
like G
RAND
T
HEFT
A
UTO
’s 3D iterations.
Certainly open world games had existed
previously, and sandbox games were
used to describe something like S
IM
C
ITY
rather than GTA. But after GTA III, any
game with any similar elements was
called “GTA-like,” and to some extent
that’s still true. Perhaps this is because
we heard a lot of publishers saying
“Make it more like GTA” at the time.
But perhaps it’s also partially the fault
of the press for wanting to compare
everything to a specific gold standard.
In the case of the game I’m working
on, the original concept is simple. I think
that’s the major factor here. It seems
that the simpler the core concept, or
the fewer core concepts exist within
one game, the more likely a successor is to be labeled
a clone. But of course, we don’t call M
ADDEN
and NCAA
clones of each other, nor clones of the sport on which
they’re based, even though they follow the original core
concept of American football to the letter. Ultimately,
it’s a question of semantics, evolution, and feeling. If a
game simply feels too much like another, it’s going to
get called a clone. If it works to distinguish itself within
a solid concept, every game like it will work in concert to
create a new genre.
WILL THE ORIGINAL CONCEPT
PLEASE STAND UP?
»
The question occurs to me as I work
on an iPhone game that’s heavily inspired
by one specific existing game. This
original game has had one or two “clones”
already, but they’re not well known
enough to have become pervasive. So
how do I know if I’ve expanded my own
version of the concept enough to safely
claim I’m not making a “clone?”
Let’s consider some existing
examples. PopCap’s A
STRO
P
OP
successfully iterates on a concept
popularized by the Data East game
M
AGICAL
D
ROP
(grab colored balls from
a well, form groups of three to remove
them) by adding powerups and changing
the setting to outer space. M
AGICAL
D
ROP
’s
creator Data East was no longer around to
make another entry in the series, so who
would begrudge PopCap’s renewal of the
still-enjoyable concept? One step further,
there’s the mobile game puzzler C
RITTER
C
RUNCH
, which looks familiar, but changes
the chaining structure to such an extent that it feels like
a totally different game.
Then there’s Z
UMA
—also from PopCap—versus
P
UZZ
L
OOP
from Mitchell Corp. In this case, only
the scenario was changed, the gameplay was not
significantly altered or upgraded from the two existing
P
UZZ
L
OOP
titles. This is much more likely to be labeled
a clone, because while the platform has changed
from the original arcade game to the PC (and other
devices), the game feels very similar. The game I’m
working on may well be more similar to the original
Data East's M
AGICAL
D
ROP
and
Capybara Games' C
RITTER
C
RUNCH
.
—Brandon Sheffield
2
GAME DEVELOPER | SEPTEMBER 2009
WWW.CMPGAME.COM
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