Category: News

Omensight, the new game from Stories: Path of Destinies developer Spearhead Games, was an 18 month effort that managed to clearly build on the strengths of its predecessor. Since we were intrigued by the premise of an ‘action murder mystery’ with mechanics you typically see in hack-and-slash games, we decided to invite the games’ developers onto the Gamasutra Twitch channel earlier today for a chat about their development process. 

Spearhead Games co-creator Malik Boukhira was kind enough to join us for that discussion, which you can now watch in its entirety up above. As it turns out, Boukhira told us that Omensight only took a toatl of 18 months to develop, and was able to share some of the methods Spearhead Games used to create assets quickly and manage a sprawling array of narrative scenarios. 

If you’re curious about how everything from studying the animation of Street Fighter, to Wing Chun, to hard-boiled detective novels influenced the development of Omensight, be sure to give it a watch! 

And while you’re at it, be sure to follow the Gamasutra Twitch channel for more developer interviews, editor roundtables and gameplay commentary. 

The folks at Take-Two Interactive have published their financials for the year ended March 31, 2018, and it appears the U.S. publisher had a good year fueled primarily by recurrent spending in games like Grand Theft Auto Online.

Notably, Take-Two reports $173.5 million (GAAP) in net income on $1.79 billion in net revenues for the year, which is just a bit more revenue and quite a bit more profit (roughly 158 percent more) than the company saw in the year prior, when it earned $67.3 million on $1.78 billion in revenues.

Recurrent consumer spending (think: sales of DLC, in-game currency, etc.) reportedly grew 63 percent to account for 42 percent of the year’s total net revenue, which is quite a bit more than the 26 percent of total net revenue it accounted for last (fiscal) year.

The big revenue-generators this year were, unsurprisingly, led by Grand Theft Auto V / Grand Theft Auto Online, NBA 2K17 / NBA 2K18, WWE 2K18, and WWE SuperCard. 

GTA Online was cited as an especially over-performing earner in the fourth quarter of the year, which actually came in a bit lower year-over-year. For just the three months ending March 31st, Take-Two reported $90.9 million in net income on $540.3 million in revenues, a bit less than the $99.3 million it earned on $571.6 million in sales it saw in the same quarter a year prior. 

“During the fourth quarter, Take-Two delivered Net Bookings growth driven by increased recurrent consumer spending – including better-than-expected results from Grand Theft Auto Online,” stated company chief Strauss Zelnick in the earnings release. “Grand Theft Auto Online and NBA2K generated record results, exceeding our original expectations, and we benefited from strong ongoing sales of Grand Theft Auto V and other catalog titles.”

In the year ahead, the company aims to hit $180-$211 million in profits on $2.5-$2.6 billion in revenue, driven largely by recurrent spending and the debut of Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2 in late October. 

Today a majority of the U.S. Senate (52-47) voted in favor of halting the Federal Communications Commission’s effort to repeal Obama-era net neutrality rules intended to ensure the free flow of information on the Internet. 

This is a big deal for the game industry given how many developers make their living selling games through online marketplaces (Steam, Humble, itch.io, etc) and/or work on online games (see: Fortnite, League of Legends, Clash of Clans, etc). 

However, there’s no guarantee that this will preserve net neutrality: now that the motion to halt the FCC’s dissolution effort has (narrowly) passed in the Senate, it goes to the House of Representatives for a vote, and then on to the President’s desk to be signed into law. The odds of it surviving through both challenges seem risky at best.

If the FCC is able to follow through on its plan to repeal net neutrality (originally scheduled for April 23rd and since delayed to June 11th), Internet service providers will be afforded more leeway to do things like speed up customers’ access to specific websites/content or limit access to online services based on how much a subscriber is paying. 

In the months since the FCC’s decision, the Entertainment Software Association and others have lobbied to save net neutrality, and the state of Washington has gone ahead and passed a law aimed at preserving net neutrality for its residents.

Down in Australia, a number of BioShock veterans have spent the last decade building their own studios, creating a succession of games that carry on some of the core game design philosophies of Irrational Games’ adventure under the ocean. 

One of those  studios, Uppercut Games, recently released City of Brass, an early access dungeon crawler that feels like a faithful translation of some core BioShock mechanics. It has a clever one-two whip-slash system that recalls BioShock’s “shock & wrench” mechanic, and even though its level design is procedurally generated, some of the core principles that brought Rapture to life have been rewritten in this game inspired by the classic story of 1001 Nights.

Since we’re always curious to see how games like BioShock have impacted the game development world, we invited the Uppercut Games crew onto the Gamasutra Twitch channel for a chat about what’s under the hood of City of Brass, and what they’ve learned since striking out on their own in the land down under. You can watch our full conversation up above, but in case you’re cooking up some procedural magic yourself right now, here’s a few quick takeaways to help your next game. 

Procedural generation can still use good level design logic

While talking with designer Ed Orman and art director Andrew James, Orman shared some of the core design logic that keeps City of Brass from feeling ‘random’ while still creating different spaces each time the player attempts a run. After starting work using a plugin from the Unreal store, Orman said that the Uppercut Games team began modifying the engine to generate spaces using some of the design tricks learned on BioShock, like building specific walls to limit player line of sight and clustering traps and stairways in order to create choke point obstacles. 

Like many developers we’ve spoken to about implementing procedural logic, Orman said that during development, the team learned that “random” levels never really felt random or fun, so the key for each successive level was to also give it an underlying logic that the engine could draw on to build spaces. For instance, the market level (which was…about as far as we could get during our stream) always generates as a kind of circular donut, mixing up the streets between rooms while relying on a set of specific room logic that creates unique challenges for that level. 

Why procedural generation helps game artists

While procedural generation can lead to some great games, it’s also worth noting that it’s not a magic problem-solver. But according to James, switching to procedural generation has increased the amount of time he’s spent creating new art assets and implementing them across the game, rather than fixing art assets that have already been implemented. 

As an example, James pointed to a set of archways that acted as a “door” to split certain areas off, and explained that those were a relatively late addition in the development process. But through the procedural tech, he explained it was easy to see those arches throughout the generated levels, rather than diving in to add an arch to every specific opening. 

And, James adds, this kind of workflow meant whenever an art asset bugged out, a fix implemented for one part of the level design would also filter throughout all the assets elsewhere in the game. Both Orman and James said this kind of time-freeing solution meant while they might not do another roguelike after City of Brass, they would be interested in using procedural tech to build single-player levels before implementing them in their next game.

When working with changing levels, your players need all the anchor points they can get

As our conversation with Orman and James continued, we switched over to the game’s art style, which the pair said is one part direct from One Thousand and One Nights, another part from European Artists of the late 19th century who drew paintings of Middle Eastern life (writer’s note: this art obviously exists in an extremely political context). While it was interesting to hear James talk about building an art style out of history rather than just looking toward other games set in the Middle East, it was also interesting to hear the pair talk about how they were sometimes forced to rely on ‘popular’ understandings of Middle Eastern mythology rather than drawing on the book directly, because with the space around players changing constantly, there wasn’t time to introduce them to unfamiliar ideas. 

For instance, there’s the game’s “genie” system (genie, djinni, the problem’s already evident), where players can interact with the mythical beings in order to purchase items, save money for another run, etc. Originally, James says he designed these beings to look more like they were physically described in 1001 Nights, but players just didn’t know what they were/what purpose they were supposed to fulfill. With Disney’s Aladdin and other Western takes on the culture so prominent in media, players found anything other than something resembling the Robin Williams character to be confusing to look at. 

Both Orman and James, who excitedly rattled off examples from One Thousand and One Nights of what art examples they tried, admitted this is a problem they would have loved to have tackled in a broader context, but with such limitations on getting the game out the door, they chose to stick with the character currently seen in the game. While this example is definitely a lesson in understanding what your players know vs what you have to teach them, it also highlights the choices developers need to make when they need to decide how much they can even teach in the course of designing a fun game design loop. 

For more developer interviews, editor roundtables and gameplay commentary, be sure to follow the Gamasutra Twitch channel. 

The Gamasutra Job Board is the most diverse, active and established board of its kind for the video game industry!

Here is just one of the many, many positions being advertised right now.

Location: Calabasas, California

External publishing producer focused on delivering on time, on budget and to a high level of quality. The Senior Producer will be required to handle several projects releasing on multiple platforms.  Responsible for ensuring that core development principles are followed, removing impediments from their teams and constantly improving production process and procedures, reporting to their Executive Producer.

Key Responsibilities

Project Management

• Work with development teams to produce entertaining games on time and on budget and to a high level of quality.
• Work with developers to create Milestone Schedules, including key project deliverables.
• Effectively track all milestones or other deliverables, ensuring focus is always on risk mitigation and proactively addressing the needs of the project. Communication of project status throughout the organization and key stakeholders is expected.
• Manage licensor relationship in regards to all product approvals and development communications.
• Manage multiple language sku’s in all territories worldwide and helping with 1st Party submissions in all territories.
• Work with QA Manager to assure proper quality and timeframe of QA testing.
• Manage any post ship game development or support needs, including live service and DLC updates
• Supply all materials needed for 1st Party submissions for concept, evaluations, relevant age rating materials, pre-cert and final submission approvals. 
• Coordinate with submissions team on any concerns or questions from 1st party, including approval/waive issue information needs.
• Partner with Brand/Marketing to acquire any needed information for 1st party brand/marketing approvals.
• Work with Brand Management and Development teams to define the creative vision of the games. 
• Effectively communicate the core experience of the game to others including Brand, PR, Sales, Executive management, press and partner companies.

Business Development

• Review new products from Business Development and provide review report on strengths and weaknesses.
• Conduct onsite due diligence for potential new developers and produce a site review report on their strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and risks.
• Experience in contract review and amendment processes, including negotiations to best drive results while ensuring company interests. 

Continual Process optimization

• In coordination with VP of Product Development, create and implement new processes and procedures across PD and throughout the organization, maintaining a continual improvement process.
• Manage and mentor other Production staff. 

Essential Skills and Experience Requirements:

• 5+ Years of game production experience. Must have managed multiple titles through the entire production process, including post launch game and content updates.
• Expert knowledge of game genres and game industry conventions
• Extensive experience with legal contracts and forms
• Experience with and understanding of console submission standards
• Must hold current Passport and be prepared to travel internationally as required
• Bachelor’s degree in computing, art, design, or related fields

Interested? Apply now.

Whether you’re just starting out, looking for something new, or just seeing what’s out there, the Gamasutra Job Board is the place where game developers move ahead in their careers.

Gamasutra’s Job Board is the most diverse, most active, and most established board of its kind in the video game industry, serving companies of all sizes, from indie to triple-A.

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