Category: News

“This seat-of-the-pants balancing was really frustrating. If you change stuff like that it loses the trust of the community and you have to build it back up again.”

– Grinding Gear Games’ Jonathan Rodgers talks about the struggles of balancing a live game

Rock Paper Shotgun has shared an insightful interview that digs into the design and post-launch balancing struggles of the Delve game mode introduced to Path of Exile a few months back.

The game’s developer, Grinding Gear Games, typically adds a new mode every three months that remixes some element of the original game, and Delve is no exception. Speaking to Rock Paper Shotgun, Grinding Gear Games co-founder and technical director Jonathan Rodgers runs through some of the early versions of Delve and the team’s ongoing struggle to balance tension with fun.

Delve went through a handful of designs that Rodgers dives into in the full story, but eventually, that balance was struck and the team moved on to addressing resources and rewards to be used in the mode. The mode shipped with what the team thought was a good balance but, as Rodgers explains, they quickly discovered that one of the rewards offered for clearing a dungeon threw systems in the rest of the game out of whack.

“We underestimated how much faster someone could go through a non-endgame area and find the resource than doing the endgame areas. We found people could do runs in one of the non-endgame areas with a max clear speed build in about 15 seconds,” says Rodgers. ”The problem with players is that if something is the most efficient thing to do, they’ll do it because they say they’re forced to do it, and also complain that it’s boring.”

The first solution was to raise the in-game resource cost of playing Delve, but that was quickly met with player backlash and blocked off the mode almost entirely for players who hadn’t reached the end-game content in Path of Exile. Rodgers explores some of the other fixes the team attempted, and how they resonated with players, before balance was achieved in the full article over on Rock Paper Shotgun.

Presented in partnership with Magic Leap. Watch the full keynote here, and check out Gamasutra’s L.E.A.P. Conference coverage here!

Magic Leap held its first L.E.A.P. Conference in Los Angeles this week, bringing with it the company’s first keynote presentation. From the moment the event began, it was clear that Magic Leap was making a statement about its vision for itself and its products, at the same time pleading its case for developers to join in on the ground floor of something special.

Part of the company’s vision is that of diversity. Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz ceded the floor after a few opening comments to CMO Brenda Freeman who said the company intends to “create a system that is culturally relevant.”

She added, “We’re committed to making significant investments to support the efforts of minority and female creators.”

Robin Hunicke, game dev veteran and co-founder of independent game studio Funomena, said, “When platforms like radio and TV and film were first developed, diversity and inclusion were not part of the zeitgeist.”

Same goes for the development of the internet, game consoles, and cell phone technology, she said. “We were not yet quite honest with ourselves about how our unconscious biases would shape these new forms of communication, perpetuating stereotypes that alienate people from one another, and sometimes, from themselves.”

But, she argued, Magic Leap presents an opportunity to plant fresh ideas that, unlike previous technologies, take into account the technology, the culture, and people altogether from the get-go.

This became clearer during the opening discussion with Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz, chief futurist and Snow Crash author Neal Stephenson, and SVP of creative strategy John Gaeta. The trio explained what makes Magic Leap tech so appealing for game design by outlining the four “North Stars” of the company’s philosophy: Sensory Field Computing, Life Stream, Human-centered AI, City-scale Experiences.

 

“We’re committed to making significant investments to support the efforts of minority and female creators.”

By combining all four of these points, they said developers can create the most desirable Magic Leap experiences.

Sensory Field Computing, for example, is the way users experience a program or game during their Magic Leap experience. Using haptic feedback, 3D audio, and light fields, Magic Leap tecj allows for a deeper game experience than traditional consoles or PCs.

Life Stream tracks users’ emotional state, using biometric feedback and awareness of the user’s environment. This opens doors to everything from horror games to dating simulators.

The focus on Human-centered AI popped up a few times throughout the presentation, largely in the form of Mica, an uncannily realistic AI woman presented in mixed reality. Human-centered AI, in Magic Leap’s definition, is AI that takes into account human emotion and empathy. The Mica AI that the company demoed was able to communicate with a user across a spectrum of interactions. In theory, Mica will be able to tell if you like the people who are around you, remember a song you mentioned liking, and talk to you like a normal person. Think Siri if she got things right and had a personality.

The final North Star is one that feels like it is destined to become central to using Magic Leap as a actual game platform in the future: City-scale Experiences. In a practical setting, this allows for directions around town while walking or inserting information about buildings or places when you arrive at a location.

But for game design, it raising the specter of a full city of interaction. Imagine a superhero game where you look up and actually see Spider-Man swinging above your head, or a Pokemon Go where you don’t need to follow your phone wherever you go. City-scale takes augmented and mixed reality out of your living room or a lab, and into everyday life.

While these broad concepts are fascinating in principal, they’re useless on their own. Thankfully Magic Leap provided a number of solutions for developers hoping to bring these ideas to their projects.

LuminOS is a homegrown operating system for Magic Leap that utilizes the open source and open standards of W3C. Where the LuminOS impressed us most was the vast number of options it presents developers with for user interaction. Normal humans interact by looking, grabbing, and placing objects. But in the magic leap interface, users can interact via head-pose, eye-gaze, a controller, gestures, voice, mobile apps, or even a keyboard. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities for developers looking to expand the boundaries of how players control their games.

Neal Stephenson talking about “Goats”

Down the line, Magic Leap games could allow you to speak to a character, who would be able to tell through the eye-gaze feature that you’re furrowing your brow in response to their reaction. While many of these features are still in the future, the options they present are fascinating and worth exploring today.

Chief futurist and famed author Neil Stephenson came out again for a solo presentation on a project called “Goats” that aims to help teach developers how to map and build creatures within Magic Leap. GLDS 0 and 1 are programs that teach basic mapping, while GLDS 2 and 3 are useful tools to help you learn how to map and build creatures within a AR space.

Magic Leap also announced an independent developer grant program in which Magic Leap with be offering hundreds of thousands of dollars in hardware, funding, and training to new studios and developers who qualify.

Epic Games also made an appearance highlighting a close partnership with Unreal Engine, highlighting a developer-centric strategy as the Magic Leap One works to gain traction in these early days.

The presentation left us wondering about how Magic Leap’s tech will impact game design: If a character is to enter a scene, for example, how can you introduce that concept using MR? Why not have a door appear on the wall? Could a scan locate a door and simulate a doorbell ringing behind it? These types of intriguing ideas could be used for revolutionary games in the future.

 

“We’re excited about what we’re going to make, but we’re particularly excited about the crazy shit you’re going to make.”

After getting a chance to play with the demos yesterday, and seeing the vision the company has for its future today, Magic Leap has gone from a clever novelty to a honest-to-god competitor for future consoles and computers.

The possibilities on display are endless, and the company’s focus on creating an inclusive space that is open to everyone leaves it with more open doors than it does roadblocks. We’re excited to see what adventures developers take us on using the foundation Magic Leap has built as a roadmap.

Or as Magic Leap Studios SVP Ant Williams put it: “We’re excited about what we’re going to make, but we’re particularly excited about the crazy shit you’re going to make.”

Minecraft developer Mojang plans to make a handful of libraries from the Java build of the game open source, giving fellow game devs the ability to peruse, tweak, or use in their own projects (with credit). 

The first two libraries getting the open-source treatment are Brigadier, or the command engine that Minecraft uses for its in-game developer console, and DataFixerUpper, a system that updates old in-game data into something that a current version of Minecraft can use.

As demonstrated in the blog post detailing the open-source plans, the Brigadier system deals with text commands keyed into Minecraft’s chat by suggesting possible commands as they’re being typed and translating the resulting command into an action in the game like giving a certain user an item or changing the game mode. 

While Mojang says Brigadier is fairly straightforward and user-friendly, DataFixerUpper is more or less just the opposite. 

“When we load up any world in Minecraft right now, you can have some data that has not been touched for six years, because that chunk was last played six years ago,” explains Minecraft Java dev Nathan Adams in the post. “So we need to know: ‘OK, this level actually looks really old. Now we’ve got to turn that old data into what it should look like now – in a way that the game can currently read.”

“We have one little unit which uses DataFixerUpper that just says to Minecraft: ‘this is how to turn anything into the data format that the game is going to use.’ And so the game is now only saying ‘This is how the data looks, so this is how I’m going to read it,” he explains. ”Basically, before Minecraft actually loads the chunks, it goes through DataFixerUpper and that turns it into what it should currently be now.”

Both Brigadier and DataFixerUpper can be downloaded right now from the company’s Github page and Mojang notes that it plans to update that original blog post when more systems are made open source as well.

Presented in partnership with Magic Leap. Tune into the L.E.A.P. keynote at 9 a.m. PT on Wednesday, October 10.

Magic Leap, the groundbreaking wearable pocket PC/augmented reality company, is holding its inaugural L.E.A.P. conference this week offering presentations and demos for industry professionals (follow Gamasutra’s ongoing coverage here). Thanks to Magic Leap, we were able to attend the conference today to try some of those demos for ourselves.

The biggest news coming out L.E.A.P. today was Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders, a collaboration between Magic Leap and renowned visual effects house Weta Workshop. One of the first games released on the new Magic Leap One headset, Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders is an augmented reality shooter than puts you in the middle of steampunk robot invasion. Based entirely on the 10-minute demo we were able to play today, Dr. Grordbort’s could be the first truly killer app for games on Magic Leap’s platform.

Actual reality at the L.E.A.P. Conference

Your Magic Leap One first scans the room, finding your walls and general room size. The game uses this map to open portals for robots to pour through as you blast them with your remote. While we were only able to test out a basic blaster, developers told us the main game would feature a number of increasingly complex weapons. The final product features seven different weapons and a grappling hook that allows you to pull weapons or arms off of enemies.

Starting the demo, your first portal opens to reveal Gimble, a small robot mascot and helper that will be with you throughout the game, who gives you a blaster. After you pick it up, a hologram of Dr. Grordbort himself appears to warn you of an impending alien invasion. Just as he finishes, portals begin to open all around you. The time to fight has begun.

 

“Based entirely on the 10-minute demo we were able to play today, Dr. Grordbort’s could be the first truly killer app for games on Magic Leap’s platform.”

What stood out the most on our first playthrough was the beauty of the graphics and the way the game makes you aware of how it works. Portals open all around you, but you’re never left wondering, thanks to the immersive design. Rather than tell you a portal has opened using only audio cues, each portal sends a wave of sparks into the room. It’s nice to know a hearing-impaired player will still be able to save the universe all because the developers provided a wide range of sensory options to keep you in the scene.

Shooting is a delight, with each enemy having their own weak points that could be hit for extra damage. Enemy projectiles can be shot back with careful blasts, though we were never able to hit an enemy with one. Enemies were split between humanoid bots and furious flying steam contraptions, providing plenty of challenge and a few stressful moments of managing the chaos erupting from the walls.

The depth of love put into the experience even encompasses the voice cast. Gimble is voiced by actor Rhys Darby (Flight of the Conchords) while Dr. Grordbort himself is voiced by Stephen Fry (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). If the full version lives up to the demo, Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders will go down as one of the best “light gun” games you’ll ever play.

Lasting three to five hours, with a sequel already in development, the full version of Dr. Grordort’s Invaders looks to be a triple-A game that brings the thrill of Borderlands or Halo’s furious firefights into your living room. Don’t take out word for it. The full game is available for free on Magic Leap One today.

Presented in partnership with Magic Leap. Tune into the L.E.A.P. keynote at 9 a.m. PT on Wednesday, October 10.

Magic Leap, the groundbreaking wearable pocket PC/augmented reality company, is holding its inaugural L.E.A.P. conference this week offering presentations and demos for industry professionals (follow Gamasutra’s ongoing coverage here). Thanks to Magic Leap, we were able to attend the conference today to try some of those demos for ourselves.

Meow Wolf is a Santa Fe, New Mexico based art and entertainment collective that started in 2008. Its crew of almost 200 artists and developers specialize in creating vivid augmented reality scenarios, and The Navigator, on display at L.E.A.P. was a stunning example of how Magic Leap can be used to enhance these experiences. The demo we experienced during L.E.A.P. is a project in collaboration with developer Magnopus.

Set in a sci-fi future, The Navigator puts players in control of a space exploration mech, built to stunning life-size scale in the demo area. During the demo we were allowed to try two components of The Navigator experience; an augmented reality astronaut and a game riding atop a giant spaceship.

The Navigator’s life-size mech was tough to fit in frame

Meow Wolf explained that the astronaut component of the demo was to show how Magic Leap could be used to show players cinematic quality, real figures in an augmented reality setting. They proved their point during the stunning demonstration. Upon putting the Magic Leap headset on I was greeted with a lifelike astronaut in a bulky, yet beautifully textured, suit. They moved around the space, jumped up in the air, and eventually pulled out a balloon with a heart on it to say goodbye.

 

“Utilized in a live game setting, this technology would make for unforgettable NPCs or haunting enemies alike.”

While the astronaut wasn’t an interactive character in the experience, it was one of the most realistic and beautiful human forms we’ve seen in XR. No matter what angle we viewed the astronaut from the details were sharp, from reflections to stitches in the suit itself. Utilized in a live game setting, this technology would make for unforgettable NPCs or haunting enemies alike. It was easy to immediately get lost in the moment watching the astronaut move around.

Next up was The Navigator mech experience. Once you’ve settled into the driver’s saddle of the mech, almost like climbing on a horse, the Magic Leap headset calibrates your view. Suddenly a 3D projection of a star system appears in front of you.

You are an adventurer in a solar system living on a planet that once had three suns. When one of the suns explodes, players use the mech to help transport their people to a new solar system. The mech we played with was just one part of a massive installation that will be happening Denver in the near future. Taking up thousands of square feet, if The Navigator is any indication, Denver sci-fi fans are going to lose their minds when the exhibit opens.

In the exhibit, you’ll be asked to collaborate with other players in a two-person experience to save your people. Magic Leap will be used as an up-sale option, allowing customers willing to pay a little extra to receive an enhanced version of the overall experience.

The Navigator (simulated user experience)

During our limited mech demo, the merging of real-life art assets and bleeding edge augmented reality elevated a simple game into an immersive sci-fi experience. As someone who prefers action games, science levels have never been my cup of tea, but by utilizing the basic slider controls on the mech, I was suddenly completely invested as a player in a simple match game.

Players press buttons on the console of the mech, listening for a subtle musical cue that lets them know they’ve selected the correct path. Using a dial, players then line up their routes with stars in the system. During our adventure, we saw beautiful maps, discovered a wormhole that exploded in a sudden burst of psychedelic wonder, and got a feel for how The Navigator will put players headfirst into the experience.

The possibilities that come to mind after the experience are incredible, from educational applications to an anime nerd’s dream of flying their own Gundam some day. The Navigator experience on its own is a phenomenal combination of art and technology, but when coupled with the design work found in the mixed reality astronaut, this demo showed the possibility of using augmented reality in a storytelling scenario. We didn’t get to interact with the astronaut, but the idea of seeing the character we met today sucked out of a airlock or shot in combat is harrowing. It felt like a man in a spacesuit was in the room, and creating that sense of presence is something many VR games struggle with.

Should studios set aside permanent spaces dedicated to game accessibility research, feedback, education, and design?

In this GDC 2018 talk, Mixer’s Tara Voelker and 343 Industries’ Brannon Zahand discuss the value of a dedicated inclusive technologies space at Microsoft.

The two go over how the lab was launched, what went right (and not quite right) during the first six months of operation, and provide detailed tips and tricks for those interested in setting up their own accessibility-centric space.

It’s an insightful talk that’s worth watching, so developers shouldn’t miss the opportunity to do so now that it’s freely available on the official GDC YouTube channel!

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

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