So I had to design, make the 3D content and program a whole game in just 15 days – a suicide, you may (correctly) think. At the time, I think I was working with Unity3D for maybe 3 months, and was a complete newbie. In any normal situation I would likely drop the job, but the client requesting this was Volkswagen Brasil (in a partnership with Castrol) – and if it isn’t enough, there were room for developing more games and softwares, if everything was successful.

Considering this, my approach was: make a basic, functional version of the game first, without any special soccer rule, and compensate this by adding some team data variation (bigger or lighter players, etc); my partner even “lent” a programmer to help me. The problem was that he didn’t knew anything about Unity, which made them almost a useless tool (in the end, he did the player registration system). But, even my simplistic approach had to be, well, simplified a little more.

In the end, what I had done was players moving and kicking the ball; keepers you could position and rotate as needed during the shooting events; if a player hit an opponent before the ball, the user would end his turn automatically. There were only 2 teams, some bizarre physics behaviours I couldn’t handle at the time, and a terrible feeling that the game would not be much successful. It would be played on an intern VW event on a paradise beach hotel, running on an “42-inch full HD iPhone”. All the company leaders and bosses would be there to appreciate, interested on investing in the idea of internal branded games.

To my surprise, the game was a complete success. So great that they asked us to make a better, full soccer-ruled version, to be online on their site during all the World Cup – which started just 2 weeks after. I sincerely tried, but this became an impossible task for me to make alone. In the time given I could put throw-ins, corner kicks and free kicks, but all those physics problems remained. In the end we didn’t finish the game, the partnership went down with time, and I had to look for something elsewhere.

For you to appreciate, there’s this and this videos showing the game in action. The first is the VW version on the “big iPhone”, and the second is the unfinished World Cup version (with some debug panels and objects on-screen). Hopefully I’ll make this game again, this time from begin to end. Enjoy!

Anyway, 2011 was a year of lesser production. From february to september I was working on a single project for a client, doing the game design and all the programming – the 3D content was developed by a great friend of mine. When I was preparing my stuff to go to Barcelona, I found some files and older project versions on my old PC, but had no time to evaluate them and see what I could show off (you know, they’re all old, unfinished, etc).

Now I started to look for some stuff, and I’ll post them here for you to know. When possible, project info will be available. Right here in Barcelona I still hadn’t a opportunity to make a game form a client, but I’ll post the stuff I’m doing at the Master as well. This weekend I was at #GGJ12, which provided me some interesting material to show. Well, hopefuly I’ll find some interesting stuff to post here.

Many may argue that nobody was expecting that, a year later, Apple would show iPhone and, some months later, the App Store. They could argue, even, that this was the great point of change this generation – if you want to consider iDevices as a platform, even this not being their original objective. But, at least for me, those devices are not exactly the main point of change – they’re just the best place for the change to take place, considering the available options. And what change is it? If you take everything that is different this generation – the industry, the market, consumer types, game types, the debate on the needing (or not) of new monster consoles – I say that the game universe grown up, found his way.

Look: the painting, originally used on funeral and religious events, turned into an expression, reality-analytical tool; the photography, once a “replacement” for painted portraits, changed to a whole new visual language; books, an ancestral knowledge repository, became the mainstream of communication, ranging from educational books to comics. As well, the gaming/hobby of yesterday became the apex of the arts and communication, by adding the all-artists dream ingredient: user interactivity. And this change is not a consequence of this generation, but the contrary.

The actual generation isn’t just a extrapolation of the last one because finally we got the tools we needed to show what games are: not a hooby, not a child’s activity, but a contemporary tool of expression and personal experience. People no more look at games as a child activity, and this is not because of the spreading of Wii, iPhone, or Angry Birds; they do so because we changed the way we use our medium. All those games, consoles and controls are a consequence of that, not the contrary. If we used this generation only to make what we always made on the other generations, things would be the same today: no moms, granmas and family playing, but just complaining.

The flourishing indie market we’re seeing today is a consequence of this: as a grown-up medium, there’s no more room for kid-quality games. No more 384857 FPSs, 27475 action racers, etc. A consumer of a mature medium wants refined content, not more of the same. There’s copycats out there as always (unfortunately), but the situation is becoming clearer. On the console universe, only the consolidated titles are remaining; on mobiles, the “different” games (not to say innovative) gains more and more attention. To the others, I think, remains the always trustful PC market (now with Mac).

The great companies are struggling, and will likely struggle more. They actually fit better on the console space, but with the same “old-school” game formulas, they will remain looking like a child product – and, as a consequence, losing their relevance. Meantime, people creating a fun and different experience for iPhone (for example) are gaining space. Individually they’re not a menace, even talking about the great companies like Rovio, Madfinger and Mika Mobile; but as a whole they not only menaced, but already did some serious damage on the traditional game business. Just look at Rochard, Trine or Samurai II to see what you can achieve without needing to be an EA or Activision.

I’m not talking about money here. Those big companies unfortunately need to talk only this way, but there’s only one thing more valuable than money that they’re losing for being slackers: relevance, spotlight. The indie revolution, combined with accessible portable wonders and (more importantly) accessible gamedev tools, wants to be the bearer of that light. It’s soon to say what we will get from this, but bringing some “democracy” to the game universe is always healthiful.

My point with this text is that we’re in the middle of a big change (it’s not finished yet), maturing our medium (for good), and I hope this process will never go back. Hardcore games probably will not be the mainstream anymore in a short time, but those casual/social games of today will not receive the spot as well. They’re just a palliative solution to a struggling jurassic industry – which will, like in the other mediums cited befored, become the “curators” and “critics” fo the game industry – just like what Valve/Steam, EA/Origin does today.

People doesn’t want hardcore shit, nor stupid forever-clicking games. They want quality experiences, as everybody does with everything. Anyone with conditions of developing a good time-killing experience will have an opportunity. For the deeper experiences, though, all you need to do is rip-off those infinite cutscenes and offer… well… deeper experiences. Anything different from this have a chance of being spotted as a deception, which is never a good thing. That’s why Nintendo always seels more games on their platforms than third-parties, and that’s why Wii/Kinect/Move are more interesting to the wider audience than a regular console: plain, simple and honest fun.

The good side is that now I’ll not need to make any special changes anymore, and will be able to post from my iPhone, which will be nice. Finally will be easy to post all the nonsense I’ll love to share with people, when it comes to me. Nice!

I’m still figuring out how to put all posts on all required languages (English, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish and now Catalan), but maybe one day I’ll manage this. God help me! lol

It’s quite a long time I don’t post anything here. It was because, rolling back to september, me and my wife received an opportunity to live and study in Barcelona-Spain. In 2 weeks we had to arrange everything, from docs to vista and travel tickets, and get there. And if that’s was not enough, in the first 2 months here we simply hadn’t a place to live, hanging from a hostel to another… bad times, but now only a distant memory.

Now we’re stablished here (and I’m studying a 3D Game Art Master), but unfortunately, all those things made me change all my game schedules; be for the reason of living on another reality, be it because of all my new duties and Master-related activities that takes most of my time.

Anyway, I got a good and a bad news: the bad is that, despite my iPhone game is totally functional and only needing the final content (missions, 3D, sound and achievements), I still doesn’t like how the control works today. Because of this, and because I’m a Game Designer (that also always raise a lot the quality bar of my games), I’ll not publish this game for a while.

I think I’ll write about the situation and later about the solution (when it comes), but by now the game (for me) is unplayable. Most of the people who played it enjoyed a lot, but usually they also have something to say about the control scheme. I’ll give one more try to achieve a new control scheme and, if it does not work like desired, I’ll put the default one (left stick + buttons) and let it go.

The good news, on the other hand, is that this search for a new gameplay led me to an entire new game, using basically everything I did with the first one. I’m still arranging things and doing some testing, but it’s fun to see that something that was a bug on a project, with just a little change of perspective, led to a brand-new experience. The down here is that I’ll end with 2 spy games (the ninja one and this new test) – the up, of course, is that both games are already functional, just needing content. What I’m trying to do is to make this new one a classic stealth game, and then look very different from the ninja one (which doesn’t even have enemies).

With this new 3.5b version of Unity I tried to use the new pathfinding system. It’s so brilliant, so easy to use, that I inclusive already have AI enemies hanging on the scene (of the stealth game), reacting when they see you and stuff – all done in just one night! My next step is to create a combat system (which will not be simply pressing an attack button), and then put some 3D art.

Then, I’ll see what will come first: creating a new control to my ninja game, or developing this stealth one to reach the same stage of the other. What comes first, that’s the game I’ll invest on then. Let’s wait and see.

For me, just like with food, there’s things we “eat” because we need, others because we want, maybe because it’s healthful, and others because it’s plain taste and fun. This way of thinking is mainly what I use as a reference of what to play, what to buy, what to look for, etc. Example: Uncharted 2 is healthful; Death Rally, not at all. That said: it’s easier to achieve better designer/developer “life quality standards” eating games like Uncharted and Mario Bros. At the other hand, Death Rally is the kind of game we eat simply because we like it; they’re good games, well polished, but with less “substance”. They range from less-ballanced food to complete junk; but, differently from real-life diet, they don’t use to “harm” our health – they simply have less substance sometimes.

But why am I talking about this? In real-life diet, when the situation favors, we may eat some poorly ballanced food – because we have enough money, or time, or we are comfortable with our health, etc. When it doesn’t, we tend to eat only what will really be good to us, as we need to make the cost/benefit relationship the better possible, and make our investments profitable: we start eating the most healthful meals we can afford with the money we have, or change dramatically what we eat in order to achieve the weight/shape we want, etc. At least for me, when talking about what games to taste, I use a similar logic.

Many of you may know that here in Brazil, games costs much more than anywhere else. We use to spend roughly US$100 or more in a game sold for maybe $30 elsewhere; that said, not mentioning the price of the consoles. Moreover, the actual situation of our jobs (the game project we’re actually in) may impact in our diet. If we’re working on a soccer game, for example, we will tend to play more soccer games, watch more soccer, etc. That’s similar to adopt a specific diet in order to be in shape for the next summer, for example. Uncharted 2 will be no less healthful, but surely less necessary in that situation. Cow meat is always healthful, for example, but you will benefit from this only if cow meat is part of the diet you’re using to reach what you want.

Because of this (high prices), there are many games I’d like to play, but I can’t – so when I have the opportunity of grabbing one, I must select carefully what will be the best, in all that scenarios combined. And just like in real life, sometimes I just want to play that “junk food” game, but have to take that other one who, in fact, will give more substance to my gamedev daily work. So I’m an avid Apple’s Appstore/Steam/Indie Humble Bundle’s follower, always looking for good piece of games for a good price, sometimes for free.

Of course, the concept of what is junk and what is healthful is very subjective. First, as said, the context could change this definition dramatically. Second, because our tastes varies a lot. Death Rally, for example, is what I consider as being junk food, and I completely love it (and I will write a review about it soon); but I’m pretty sure that, for a lot of people, it’s a necessary game (people developing such kind of game, death race games fans). Nevertheless, it’s difficult to say it’s simply a healthful one. (Important info: a game/genre we like doesn’t mean it’s necessarily healthful.)

Although I don’t put any grade to classify this, there’s some obvious distinctions. Milestone games as Uncharted, Mario and Gears of War naturally tend to be healthful by default. Most of the games are just “tasteful” to specific diet menus, ranging from yummy to necessary according to the situation – but not necessarily with much substance on itself. For my tastes, Death Rally is one of those games – a completely yummy game. But if I’m not on a needing of a game like this, it will only “fatten” me: taking a time/effort I not necessarily could expend. That’s why I’m talking about this kind of gamedev diet.

The point is: what are you eating nowadays? I’m currently developing my first iPhone game, after a year eating many other iPhone games and trying to understand what make them so tasteful. Not all were exactly healthful (with all the substances I needed), but were all needed. I surely got more robust food in the meantime, but those iPhone games were (and still are) the snacks I eat while working; in a future project, I will probably change it to a different one. You may say it’s a pointless subject, and in fact I have not exactly an objective with this. I’m just sharing my experiences regarding choosing new games, how I look at it, and what to play at a given moment. I think many of you do something alike – maybe unconsciously -, and my intention is only to try to make it conscious. Who knows, maybe it could help organizing someone else’s gaming habits.

“While Apple has been widely credited with expanding the gaming market, Blackley believes it was never its intention to do so. ‘They hated videogames,’ he says. ‘The victory of games is utterly complete with Apple. It’s a total victory.’”

“They tried real hard to make the iPad about word processing and music, and the audience just doesn’t want it. It’s beautiful. You don’t need to have a games strategy anymore.”

“The highest calling of any digital device is to play a game.”