There are three things I’m working on:

Dancing Lights will continue to receive a number of updates.  I want to keep it constantly evolving, changing with the times, and always representing my latest line of thought.  Expect further enhancements to the graphics along with a few additional levels.  I plan on submitting it to next year’s Independent Games Festival.

Movement is starting to receive a lot of attention from me.  It’s an iPhone project which will feature fluid controls and glowing pixels.  Currently, I’m focusing purely on how it controls.  Movement isn’t a huge project; I hope to have it out sometime this year.

Then there’s Communication, a project poised to be Liquid Crystal’s epic maneuver.  It exists only in bits and pieces at the moment, but someday it will all come together.

“Flowers” by Mark Coyle

Dancing Lights is a re-imagining of childhood discovery. Behind its abstract shapes and basic rules is a world of limitless depth, morphing into different forms based on your thoughts and mood. Will the experience be relaxing, tense, intriguing, or something completely different? Simply touch a light and see where it takes you.

February 2010
David Anton

App Store Link: iTunes | Dancing Lights

Back in 2005, Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, made a comment about, “a game that’s played by sound and touching light.” It was during a time where he demanded that the industry change and try to create new types of games. I thought about this for several weeks years and formed the basis of Dancing Lights, a game designed around the concept of discovery.

I challenged everything from the notion of score to the need for detailed instructions.  I wanted to create an experience which mimicked my first interactions with a videogame.  I had no instructions, nor did I care about a number.  Only two things mattered: the response I got from ‘touching’ the game and the sheer joy of discovery.  Soon you’ll be able to experience this for yourself.

Links
Dancing Lights

Analysis
Outside of game development, I have been analyzing a couple of famous game designs.  I’m in the process of turning these notes into a more digestible reading experience with entertaining highlights for all to enjoy.  The names of the games?  Well, they both come from different parts of Asia…

What’s next in terms of development?
A lot.  Really.  I have been brainstorming different types of art styles and the animation that goes with them.  It bugs me to see complicated art paired with shoddy (or total lack of) animation.  I’ve been studying and doing tests with “glowing” pixels, monochromatic design, positive & negative space, simulated paint, and 16-bit art styles.

In addition to this art style initiative,  I have a couple of “touch demos” I’d like to begin working on soon.  These won’t be much more complicated than one of those 5-10 second WarioWare minigames, but they will allow me to find the fun and match an art style with each demo.

In my life…
I’ve been enjoying New Super Mario Bros. Wii quite a bit.  The way multiplayer transforms the experience makes going through the game multiple times a treat.  Whether you play by yourself or with friends, the finely tuned difficulty keeps players going for “one more try.”

If you’re looking for some other new games to pick up, I recommend Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, Dead Space Extraction, NyxQuest, and Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story.

I’m currently reading The Elements of Style (Strunk/White) and The Glass Bead Game (Hesse).  I don’t have much to say on either at this point, but they will both undoubtedly influence my future work.

Links
Donkey Kong & Dig Dug paintings (Brock Davis)

A trailer has appeared for Fumito Ueda and Team Ico’s next project.  The third game developed by the team is now known as “The Last Guardian” and looks to continue the companionship theme seen in their earlier projects.

Ico

Ico, their first game, presented players with the task of protecting and escaping with a young, often defenseless girl named Yorda.  She hindered the player, yet was necessary to progress.  A complicated set of emotions emerged from the frustration of keeping her safe while going on the treacherous journey together.  It was character development at a minimalistic level.  Not many stories feature deep character development without the use of spoken dialogue.

Shadow of the Colossus continued the theme with a horse named Agro, the hero’s sole ally.  Staying in line with the frustration (and depth) that comes with a realistic ally, Ueda noted that, “a real horse … doesn’t always obey. It’s not like a car or a motorcycle, it won’t always turn when you say ‘turn!’” Yet, Agro is essential in taking down some of the faster moving colossi.  After the fall of these titans, there’s a feeling of accomplishment and joy from working together with Agro, crushing any previous resentments towards the horse.

The Last Guardian, at this point, looks to blend Agro’s functionality with Yorda’s fragility.  The creature gently lifts the boy back to safety and transports him to a range of different areas.  Arrows can be seen sticking out of the creature’s side, implying there will be some sort of conflict.  I can only imagine the feeling of watching this creature become gravely injured after bonding with it.  Is Ueda developing a tragedy?

I’ve been developing these ideas through the aid of many spiral notebooks. Each one is packed with a stream of thoughts in tangible form, yet the information they contain is next to useless.  The contents include formulas, matrices, ideas, and basic illustrations; most are scribbled upon to work out solutions.  The development journal also serves as a second display and allows me to escape the digitalized realm of the computer for one with more finesse.

How do you develop your thoughts? I’ve read stories similar to mine, while I see others working their thoughts out with Lego blocks or by letting their minds go while gazing at stars or tiles.

A screenshot from a previous rendition of Dancing Lights

Creativity cannot be scheduled.  It can come from all the time in the world or from no time at all.  Some thrive in open environments, while others build from restriction.  I’ve never really formally announced a game since beginning this blog.  I threw a post up earlier this year which mentioned the game and its lofty goals, but since then I’ve silenced the wire.  Since development can change so quickly and frequently, I don’t see the point, but with a project finally nearly completion, it’s time to say something.  So let’s get started.

For the past six months, I’ve been working on a project tentatively named “discovery.”  The original goal was to create an abstract playing field with few, if any, preconceptions and ever evolving gameplay.  Each game would be a new discovery.  Players could find games or make their own based on all of the random elements at work.  Unfortunately, it was a concept which was too difficult for me.  The project later evolved into a design where players would decipher patterns, but it was too complex and lacked the intuitiveness I was looking for.

Then several things happened.  I purchased a MacBook and decided to turn the experience into an exercise in minimalistic computing.  I had also tried Drop7, a falling blocks puzzle game with numbers.  While it wasn’t an amazing experience, it was a thoughtful one.  It made me re-evaluate the use of random variables and score.  Normally, I love scores.  In Wii Fit, I continuously practiced and worked my way to a perfect “555″ score in the soccer game.  I was initially enticed by Drop7’s simplicity, but learned it was anything but.  With so many variables, it’s nigh impossible to develop a gradual build up of skill.  I haven’t given up on Drop7, I’m still working hard to decipher some kind of logic behind it.  If nothing else, it’s helped me build a foundation for Discovery.

With these lessons fresh in my mind, I set out to find the fun in Discovery.  I peeled off layer upon layer of complexity and made the code flexible so I could try new ideas at a fast pace.  On a late night, I had found the fun I was looking for.

With the prototype of Discovery nearing completion, the main hurdles ahead are balance and flow.  I hope to have a release candidate sent to Apple for evaluation by early summer.  Yes, it’s going to be for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Focused Design
Know exactly what the game is about.  What words can describe the design?  Virtua Fighter can be reduced to: fighting, attack, throw, block, and balance (in this case, rock-paper-scissors with unequal rewards).  The series has stayed true to these basic words throughout its many renditions.  Keep the number of words short; the fewer words, the more focused the design will end up.  If working on a team, this is especially important as it will help everyone understand the exact goal of the design.

Shadow of the Colossus is another example of a focused design which consists of exploration, boss battles, and puzzles.  The world is barren and void of life, constraining (in a good way) and directing the player into hunting down and defeating these giant creatures.  It’s a game that’s exclusively a series of boss battles and there’s no doubt that the entire design was based around these astounding colossi.

The Mega-Buster is a trick.

Minimalism
Mega Man 9 did something brave; it stripped most of the baggage that built up over the years.  It was pleasing to finally see the nonsensical mega-buster removed.  It was a gimmicky element that gave the player a false sense of building up strength.  In the end, it was still a shot, only slightly annoying due to having to hold a button down in anticipation of the next target.  With or without the mega-buster, it’s the same game!

When there are added abilities that are integral to the design, a stacking system can keep things simple by eliminating the needless input of switching through menu selections.  Metroid: Zero Mission continuously adds abilities, without needing to resort to a menu to switch them.  A simple, short ranged beam eventually becomes long ranged, gains the ability to freeze targets, can shoot through walls, and multiplies in strength throughout the game.  All of these abilities stack and negate the need to go through a menu, keeping the game’s flow going without pause.

Make the game work, not the player
David Sirlin made an excellent point in his critique of Street Fighter 4; despite trying to simplify the game, there’s still a “wall of execution” between the player and controls which prevents total engagement of the actual fighting.  It feels amazing to pull off a special move just in the brink of time.  Often though, it’s less about thinking about the special move, and more about getting the controls to trigger it.  The same goes with throws and counter-throws.  The window of input is less about fighting and more about some ridiculous exercise in precision.  When it comes down to it, Street Fighter 4 is more of the same: still fun, yet still with its barriers.  Consider this: where is the player’s mind when playing a game in a crucial situation?  Are they knowing what they want, but fighting to perform the said action? Or maybe they are flabbergasted and overwhelmed with the possible moves laid before them?  The human mind often works in threes.  Again, remember the value of rock-paper-scissors.

Starcraft is essentially Microsoft Windows in outer space.

Intuition
With Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo, Blizzard takes what people already know through using Windows or Mac OS X, and ingeniously applies it to a more entertaining design.  Pointing, clicking, and dragging via the mouse are all skills people quickly get acquainted with in the interface of today’s operating systems.  These games are essentially “fun” operating systems due to their intuitive and quick to learn design.  Blizzard didn’t create anything new, they simply applied what people already knew to the structure of their game design.  Due to this, Blizzard has seen phenomenal success in drawing new players into the mix while creating games that are easy to learn.

The Kidnapping
Satoru Iwata had a couple of anecdotes of Shigeru Miyamoto’s method of making games. One involved Miyamoto picking random employees who weren’t on the development team and then watching them play the game. Now playtesting is hardly a noteworthy practice, but its what Miyamoto does (or doesn’t do) that is of particular interest. Instead of asking the player questions or interacting with them, he quietly observes what’s going on. Many of Nintendo’s games are easy to pick up and play without instruction, perhaps this is why.

Finding the Fun
The other anecdote explained the importance of prototyping. Developers at Nintendo are often split into small teams. There they begin developing an idea and are told to, “find the fun.” These prototypes can be very simplistic; this gives the team a chance to focus on the core gameplay that will be the experience. Isolating and developing this core gameplay will lay the foundation for a larger project and serve as a guiding light.

Making the “Impossible” Possible
Hideo Kojima’s keynote walked through the history of Metal Gear. During the early development of the series, he was faced with a seemingly impossible barrier. He was initially assigned to develop a combat game on the old MSX hardware. Faced with severe limitations of the hardware, the number of possible elements had to stay small. The answer? Create a stealth action game. While Kojima was faced with hardware limitations, it’s a story that can played out in a number of different scenarios.

Fez!
Finally, there was Fez. I’ll let the trailer do the talking…

FEZ TRAILER 2 from fish on Vimeo.

This is really cool.  There haven’t been many quality 2.5D games as of late.  Super Paper Mario was a cumbersome experience at best, while Fez is still a ways off from release. In the meantime, there are videos like this one to help us dream of the possibilities that could exist…

Thanks to Peter Sjostrand for creating this awesome video!