Every great game is built using Metaphor. Now Metaphor isn’t some programming language or document editor - I’ve only capitalised it because it’s Really Important. Like that bit. See? Good. Now our Metaphor should be Solid and Hard. Let’s pick an example.

How about pickle as in, “in this game the player gets in a bit of a pickle”. Now you might be thinking that this is a great Metaphor because it implies that your game’s got great puzzles – pickle is after all made out of a combination (that means mix) of ingredients. And you combine things in some puzzle games. Also, pickle is quite tasty and you might want your game’s protagonist (that means player character) to be some tasty bird.

But no! Pickle is no good because pickle is squishy and not Solid and Hard. We need something that really screams Solid and Hard (that isn’t rude), and I can think of only one thing – a Rock. As in Solid as a Rock! Rock Hard! Rockefeller! Rock on, dude! Rocky IV! Baroque! Perfect!

How to conceptualize an award winning game

Every planet has a Rock at its core. Every game has a nugget of what it is, and that is the concept. The conceptualization of the game is the stage where you decide what is in the game. Conceptualization is really important.

Some great concepts include ones where the player has to do really cool things, like save the world or destroy something, or rescue a princess. A concept can also be something that is different about the game. It could involve no shooting, for example. Or it could involve shooting different things (like aliens, or innocent people)

Anyway, as you can see, ideas spray from my brain like a geyser of genius, but that is to be expected. For you this process may be hard. But do not despair, because a Rock is fashioned from smaller Rocks – for even the ant that stands on the pebble stands taller than the smaller ant, in the mud beside the pebble. I think that is the best way to express what I mean.

So, as you can see, conceptualizing is Very Important.

How to construct an exciting and absorbent narrative

Narrative is very important. A litre of water can be displaced by a Rock. And that Rock is the Narrative, in a bucket of Story.

The narrative is what happens in the story, and how the game happens to the player as they are playing the game. A narrative requires a narrator, and that narrator is you, and you must narrate to the player the story in the form of a narrative. This is what a narrative is.

Always start your narrative with a cut-scene!

This cut-scene should be long and impressive. Now, some gamers are lazy gamers, and they just want to get to the game-play as quickly as possible. Of course, we know that the narrative is Very Important, so it is crucial that you make sure this cut-scene is compulsory. A good way to do this is to disable the joy-pad (this is programming speak for making the joy-pad not work)

Gamers get tired hands

It is important to interrupt game-play frequently to give the player’s hands a rest. Adding numerous non-story related cut-scenes, a great example of which is the brilliant Resident Evil series and it’s fondly remembered opening door animations, which were actually not related to load times, but a genius bit of game design to rest gamers’ hands. You can use similar devices like overly complex “picking item up off floor” sequences, or blissfully long death animations.

Story drives game-play, not the other way around!

A car cannot be driven without a driver. That driver must be the story pushing the pedal of narrative. It is important that what happens in your story happens, whether the player likes it or not. It doesn’t matter if the player isn’t having fun right away, if it’s important to the story then put it in, because there’ll be plenty of time for fun later on.

Adding the plot twist

You must have a plot twist because it makes your story sound clever. A good way to add a plot twist is to make one of the characters a bad guy, even though you thought they were a good guy (like in Star Wars). This is a great example of a plot twist. Market Research scientifically shows that this plot twist will do, so just use that one. Also, make sure that this plot-twist is explained in full on the back of the box, to show the gamers that they are buying a clever game.

Think big (like a Rock, a big Rock)

Some small and boring game is not going to get to #1. Gamers are hungry for bigness, and only bigness will do. For example, it is generally seen as a bit of an embarrassment in the upper echelons of the game industry to release a game that fits on a single DVD (or perish the thought, a CD), so make sure your cut-scenes are high definition FMV that would make Peter Jackson bluish. Your story deserves it.

Ending on perfection

Spending time on the ending is not as important as the beginning, as only a few gamers will get to it. Junior designers or placement students would be ideal for this task, so you can spend your time making that all important intro! Remember to get your name first on the credits, and that the credits are accessible from the main menu (or better still compulsory at the start of the game). Remember whose hard work this game is down to. (Yours… and mine)

So there we go. Rock Solid game design in a nutshell. No not a nutshell actually, a Rock Holder. But a small Rock Holder that’s portable and fits into a pocket or something.

P.S. Buy Gibbage by Don Martian

Popularity: 5% [?]

It’s time for another edition of Industry Top Facts. This time we will be learning lots of interesting, and definitely true, tidbits about Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto!

1. Although most famous for coming up with Mario, Miyamoto was also responsible for inventing the postage stamp, Tuesday afternoons, and more crucially the Curley Wurley.

2. The main characters in Mario Bros were originally intended to be Russian gynaecologists, until Miyamoto came onto the project and insisted that Italian plumbers would be much more believable.

3. When demoing the Wii to top Nintendo execs, Miyamoto managed to sell the idea of the revolutionary control device by showing them a tech demo that involved poking a monkey out of a tree with a long stick.

4. The world and events portrayed in Legend of Zelda are based upon a true story.

5. Miyamoto is a huge fan of Gibbage, claiming it is much better than any game he’s ever come up with. He also refutes any claims that he has received any death threats through the post from Gibbage creator Don Marshall.

6. Miyamoto once wore a red plumber’s hat for 10 years straight for charity, but unfortunately he forgot to tell anyone; including the charity.

7. Miyamoto was once arrested for head-butting a shop proprietor’s block in downtown Tokyo.

8. The risqué comments Mario makes about the origins of Princess Peach’s name were removed from the US release of Super Mario Bros.

Popularity: 5% [?]

We thought we had better cement our place as the official place for really good reviews of games written in a witty way but also being really informative whilst writing in an extremely good style and that. For our first review will be Gibbage by Don Marshall.

Graphics
Not much can be said about the graphics in Gibbage.

10/10

Gameplay
There is some gameplay involved in Gibbage. This is mostly carried out through a keyboard.

10/10

Lastability
We soak-tested Gibbage on our PC for 20 days straight. It seemed to be lasting perfectly well, though we weren’t playing it at the time (it was too dull)

10/10

Overall
On the while we found Gibbage to be an extremely fun and worthwhile experience. We did however feel the crack was not easy enough to find and apply, and involved too much fiddling with renaming filenames.

30/10

300%

Popularity: 6% [?]

Well guys, gals and other assorted genders, it’s been an all action time in development of The Forgotten Element. Since the incident with the coding monkeys and that faulty plug socket, the pressure has been on both of us to do some bloody work ourselves, so we’ve been slogging it out non-stop ever since, not taking even a second to relax.

Progress? Well, there’s been loads!

For example, we noticed that Mia looked a bit silly walking in diagonals since she only had the four direction walk cycles, so we promptly set about adding diagonal walk cycles to make sure her walk would be as natural as possible, given you see a lot of her walking in the game. We now have nigh on 400 frames of animation for Mia alone, and still many more to do. One thing that is very important to us is finding out what will happen to the Battlestar Galactica crew when they get caught by the Cylons, and if Adama keeps his moustache…

Where was I? Oh yes, we’ve also been working on a parser so that conversations and cut-scenes (using the patented and quite funky Elemental Conversation System) can be written in nice and simple TV script-like formatting. This works really well and has certainly speeded up the scripting process no end, and our only real concern now is that since Locke didn’t push the button, he, along with Desmond and Mr. Eko, might be in pretty bad shape (if not worse!) but hopefully everything will turn out okay!

Okay. Hopefully.

What else?

Well, scripting the actual game is going pretty well too. We now guestimate we have approx 75% of the prologue playable throughable, though some placeholder locations and Guybrushes a-plenty still inhabit Seahorse Island. Nikolas has also put together some cracking musical treats along with, quite literally, cracking thunder and rain in the mix. To do this some justice we’ve added a lightning overlay effect that syncs up to his thunder, and it all looks (and sounds, obviously) pretty funky. Now to get those particle effects finished for the rain!

Oh, and we also now know exactly what was in the Dead Man’s Chest.

So yes, non-stop work on The Forgotten Element…

Popularity: 6% [?]

As hype for our up-coming adventure game, The Forgotten Element, spreads exponentially across the globe it was only a matter of time before one of our many fans made some sort of spin-off product. So it came as no great surprise to find out that one of our characters has been adapated into his very-own (critically acclaimed) T.V. series!

Yes, it’s true folks! It would appear that said fan has turned out to be non-other than the World-famous time-travelling best-selling author, Michael Crichton, who has developed a substantial medical drama for Seahorse Island’s very own Doctor Carter!

Unfortunately, Mr Crichton was unavailable for comment but what we reckon he would have said was, “I was very impressed by the character of Doctor Carter in the Forgotten Element when I downloaded the demo later this year. I immediately leaped upon the concept of developing an entire T.V series based around him (although set in America) and luckily the day before, I found a time-machine in my back garden.”

Popularity: 3% [?]