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When the first Final Fantasy game was released in 1987, no one could have realized what a misnomer that “final” in the title was, or what a profound effect the title would have on game developers all over the world.

Final Fantasy is one of the longest-running franchises of all time, and the latest entry in the series is one of the longest-awaited titles in games. With Final Fantasy XV finally, finally arriving today, it’s a good time to take stock of several key ways that Square (Enix)’s preeminent role-playing series has introduced innovations to gaming and influenced other designers.

We reached out to several developers and afficionados for whom the franchise has been a touchstone, and got their input on what makes FF games so unique. Thanks to Bill Steirnberg, Andrew Allanson, Alexa Ray Correia, and Greg Kasavin for their input.

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There’s a saying that only a few thousand people bought the first Velvet Underground album, but everyone who did went out and started their own band. Millions of people played the early FF titles, and many of them were so inspired by their mechanics and storylines and characters and presentation that they paid homage to the franchise in their own work.

Korean developer Yang Bing is the latest example. He was so enthralled by the trailer for Final Fantasy XV that he single-handedly made a prototype for an entirely new game, Lost Soul Aside. After two years of work, he released his own trailer, which prompted a massive response; publishers such as Sony and Epic have even reached out, hoping to help make the game a reality.

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Lost Soul Aside

Final Fantasy has inspired generations of creators to make their own games.

Zeboyd Games is well-known for its old-school takes on JRPGs such as Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World, and Ackk Studios’ upcoming title YIIK uses prerendered backgrounds in a way that invokes the PS1 classic Final Fantasy VII.

YIIK

“I have this distinct memory of getting home from Blockbuster and trying out Final Fantasy IV [FF2 in the west],” says Bill Steirnberg, programmer, Zeboyd Games. “I remember thinking, ‘Man this isn’t like Legend of Zelda at all.’ At first I was put off because I was a kid and it wasn’t what I was expecting. But then I got sucked in.”

“I loved how the creators were courageous enough to create new worlds each time, and to make characters who were empathetic and nuanced… In short, I want to make games that can make people feel the way the classic Final Fantasy games made me feel.”

“I have a very fond memory of getting Final Fantasy IX,” says Andrew Allanson, co-founder, Ackk Studios. “I didn’t get games very often so I always made sure when I got a game it was the longest game available. So the idea of a game that was four discs really excited me. After I beat it, I quickly bought FF7 and FF8. And I bought a Super Nintendo to get FF6. And so on and so on. Within two years, I’d beaten every Final Fantasy game available aside from Final Fantasy Tactics. I was 13 at the time.”

Supergiant’s first two games, Bastion and Transistor, transported players to new worlds steeped in lore and an idiosyncratic energy familiar to fans of Square’s famed series.

“I distinctly remember playing the original Final Fantasy for the Nintendo Entertainment System as a kid,” says Greg Kasavin, creative director, Supergiant. “Even when I wasn’t playing it I would be theory-crafting new ways to play it: ‘What if I create a part with four Black Belts, or two Black Mages, a Red Mage, and a White Mage?’ This sounds silly now, but at the time it was incredibly refreshing to have a game that afforded me this level of freedom.”

“Final Fantasy is a huge inspiration to me personally, as those games helped open my eyes as to what could be achieved with interactive storytelling in games,” adds Kasavin. “I cared so deeply for those characters and their stories, and I loved how the creators were courageous enough to create new worlds and casts of characters each time, and to make characters who were empathetic and nuanced…In short, I want to make games that can make people feel the way the classic Final Fantasy games made me feel.”

In a genre where you’ll spend upwards of 80 hours with certain party members, it’s important that they make for good company. The designers and localization teams who have worked on the Final Fantasy series have created innumerable memorable teammates throughout the years. Like any celebrity worth their salt, we know them by a single name: Cloud. Squall. Lightning. Aeris. Vivi. Zidane.

The series has presented players with memorable characters ever since Garland first threatened to knock us all down.

As a developer or writer, you’re lucky if you create any one character that stands the test of time. Final Fantasy’s cast is rich enough to support multiple Best Of lists, with different publications and fan sites naming their top 20, 25, and even 100 greatest characters.

“I think a lot of people gravitate toward the Final Fantasy series because of the characters,” says Steirnberg. “Some of them you root for and some of them are kind of goofy and some of them are annoying to be honest. But the diversity of personalities in the cast stick out for me.”

“There’s a scene in Final Fantasy IV (originally released as II in North America) where a vengeful old man called Tellah sacrifices himself in a desperate attempt to avenge his daughter,” says Kasavin. “While this wasn’t the first time in an RPG where a playable character dies as part of the story, that his quest ends in failure made it very impactful, and served as an important point in a memorable story.”

Final Fantasy XV is not a continuation of Final Fantasy XIV, just as Final Fantasy II did not pick up where the original left off. Each main title in the series is its own self-contained story with a new world to explore. A game succeeds if the player wants to spend time there. In most every case, Final Fantasy creates a world worth discovering.

“When I think of Final Fantasy, I think of these grand experiences: long, epic journeys and pilgrimages with new faces and places at every turn,” says Alexa Ray Corriea, who is working on an upcoming book-length examination of Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts II. “I turned to the series as a means of escape. I was that nerdy girl in school that was always bullied, always the outcast because I didn’t follow what was popular and didn’t fit the mold, and I still think of the series that way. It’s my safe space…the place I go to hear a beautiful story and to challenge myself.”

“Final Fantasy, for me, was the first game that really made you feel something, in terms of feeling for characters and feeling that the world meant something,” says Allanson. “When you play Final Fantasy VII, you feel compelled to save the world because you enjoy being in it so much. Between the art direction and the characters and the music, there’s something very inviting about it.”

“I loved how the Final Fantasy games used music to deliberate effect,” says Kasavin. “They had musical scores, not just soundtracks.”

Composer Nobuo Uematsu enriched this simple role-playing game with a sound that lingers decades on; his themes have been played at concert halls (and fans’ wedding ceremonies).

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The series’ lasting impact and its music are inextricably linked. Even when the two are separated, success follows. Few game franchises could get away with releasing a game based entirely around its signature sounds. But that’s exactly what Theatrhythm: Final Fantasy for Nintendo 3DS (and later iOS) is.

“They did a reorchestration of [the famous Opera Scene in Final Fantasy VI] for one of the Distant Worlds CDs (an official album compilation of FF songs) and if you listen to the music and compare it to something like Wagner, which is real opera, the music is just as sophisticated,” says Allanson. “There’s just as many complex moving lines and intricate harmonies. In a way, video games have moved away from this now. Everyone seems to be going toward a film score direction–it’s all just so harmless now. Uncharted 4 plays it so safe with [music] you feel could be playing in the background of a ‘Law & Order’ episode. Whereas Final Fantasy really always has been scored like an opera.”

Beyond this winter’s 15th mainline game, the Final Fantasy franchise has expanded beyond the traditional role-playing with dalliances in other genres. In addition to the rhythm games and the Chocobo handheld spin offs, there’s Final Fantasy Tactics (a strategy game from the folks behind Tactics Ogre) and Dissidia Final Fantasy, a 3D fighting game, among many others. With what was supposed to be a one-off adventure, Square succeeded in building the ultimate renewable resource: a Brand Name in its own right, able to be grafted onto new, tangential ideas. 

Perhaps the best example of the series’ malleability is in Kingdom Hearts, which enmeshes two unlikely universes–Final Fantasy and Disney–together. Whether this is smart evolution or cynical capitalism depends on how much you value survival in an increasingly hostile marketplace. 

“Kingdom Hearts works because it looks like it shouldn’t,” says Corriea. “Disney is sweet and cuddly and Final Fantasy is dark and complex. But both of these properties offer a depth of storytelling and emotional power seen so little in other media. Final Fantasy has always been an idea: heroes on an epic journey with a few repeating elements, like cactuars and moogles and crystals and Phoenix Downs. You can build anything in any which way from that idea. Maybe that was the intention of its creators. Or maybe it was just a happy accident.”

The upcoming Final Fantasy XV is a quest 10 years and untold millions of dollars in the making. It has a lot to live up to–the franchise has long sought to dazzle players with game experiences that are more detailed and grand than anything they’ve seen before.

“I think the reason FF took off compared to Dragon Quest is that, even though DQ did well, Squaresoft were able to push not just the story but get ahead of everybody else in the scope of production values and [get] into people’s minds just what this genre is and how big it can be and how beautiful it can be,” says Steirnberg. “FF6 is probably a lot of people’s most memorable favorite in the series. Once that took off, they just cranked it up to 11 with FF7, and everyone else was left playing catch up. Once you have a franchise that can sell millions of copies, you can afford to spend millions of dollars making everything bigger and better and more impressive.”

It‘s difficult to convey how revolutionary this commercial seemed in 1997 if you weren’t around then

With Final Fantasy VII on the Sony PlayStation, Square found a receptive audience in the west enamored by the grandiose visuals and storytelling rarely attempted elsewhere.

“Ever since Final Fantasy VII, I’d say the series has exemplified big-budget gaming from Japan: lots of imagination, lots of production value, all with a specific point-of-view,” says Kasavin. “I think it’s always represented a certain type of blockbuster game, one more focused on world-building and storytelling than straight-up action.”

And yet in the decades-long wait, other franchises have taken the mantle of Event Games that promise spectacle never yet seen. In Japan, Dragon Quest became the de facto mega-release that people cut class and took sick days to buy and play.  Some question whether creating the most ambitious spectacle possible is still a valuable goal for the franchise.

Can Final Fantasy still overwhelm players with its spectacle? Should it try to?

“I’m not sure that just going bigger, bigger, bigger with each installment is that important in the grand scheme of things,” adds Kasavin. “I would love to see new games in the spirit of Final Fantasy VI or Final Fantasy Tactics. I admit I’m likely not in the majority on this but I care more about the tone and quality of the storytelling, and the underlying game systems, than the fidelity of the presentation.”

What’s the difference between ethical and unethical player testing, and what does ethical player testing require?

Those are the questions professor and researcher Mia Consalvo stepped up to answer at GDC 2017, where she delivered a fascinating talk about the need for (and demands of) ethical playtesting standards in game development.

In her talk Consalvo made the case for ethical playtesting and offered devs a practical guide to implementing ethical playtesting standards in their work. She also offered an interesting overview of the history of human subjects research and gave attendees an idea of where to go and research it further, with the ultimate goal of making the playtesting process more fruitful and enjoyable for both players and game makers.

It was a thoughtful, well-informed talk about an under-discussed topic, so don’t miss your chance go back and watch Consalvo’s talk for free via 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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Radiant Entertainment is winding up to share the final build of its canceled fighting game Rising Thunder as a free, community-focused release.

Usually canceled projects never see the light of day, so Radiant’s ability to suddenly release a final build of Rising Thunder complete with quality-of-life improvements and the source code for online servers is no small surprise.

The game itself was canceled back in 2016 when Riot Games acquired the studio and shifted the development team to new projects. There have since been scattered fan attempts to revive the game’s online servers as they were during its beta period, and Radiant now says the release of Rising Thunder: Community Edition is their contribution to those efforts.

Due out in January, the Community Edition will be the final build Radiant made of the game, with a few alterations. Online play and local play have both been included, along with some minor fixes and tweak. Additionally, Radiant plans to release source code for an open-source version of the Rising Thunder server, essentially giving the community a chance to participate in matchmade online games and also mess with the code itself if desired.

“Board games are software that run on people.”

With those words, game designer Tim Fowers opened his GDC 2017 Board Game Design Day talk about the design and development of his acclaimed co-operative board game Burgle Bros.

What’s interesting about the Burgle Bros board game is that it was designed to capture the fantasy of the heist: allowing players to experience the tension of planning, pushing your luck, and adapting when things go south.

In his talk, Fowers talked about how about how to recreate these moments using key game choices instead of theatrical presentation. He also spoke to the overlap between video and board game design, and discussed how games are ultimately a test of character and how he used rogue-like mechanics to drive players to critical choices that create emotion and tell unique emergent stories.

It was a fascinating talk, so if you missed it live earlier this year don’t miss your chance to now watch it for free over on the GDC YouTube channel!

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its new 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, GDC Europe, and GDC Next 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.

Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas

The article “Combat System Development on BioWare’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” initially appeared in the December 2003 issue of Game Developer magazine.

CASEY HUDSON | Casey was producer and project director on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. 

RAY MUZYKA | Ray was joint-CEO of BioWare Corp. and was executive producer of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. 

JAMES OHLEN | James was the lead designer of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. 

GREG ZESCHUK | Greg was joint-CEO of BioWare Corp. and was executive producer of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Many of the design decisions made, and project management methodologies used at BioWare during the development of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) were built on the experience of our exceptional staff from our past projects such as Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, Neverwinter Nights, and MDK2. We set our high goals for the combat system: first, we wanted our system to leverage the fun of BioWare’s past RPGs and the experience we gained from them. In addition, the combat system needed to look as exciting as the battles in the Star Wars movies. Finally, the combat system and the game in general had to feature an interface that was very accessible; we wanted any player who likes Star Wars, likes playing Xbox or PC games, or likes console or PC RPGs, to have fun with the combat techniques in KOTOR. 

Building a new and unique game system is difficult at the best of times, but the most valuable asset a team can have is people that have tried similar things in the past. Fortunately, many of the senior members of the KOTOR team cut their teeth on the original Baldur’s Gate, where we first developed the processes allowing us to make enormous games with new methods of depicting RPG combat. After developing Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, Neverwinter Nights, and expansions to both series, we had trained — and retained — a very strong group skilled in the development of far-reaching game systems, and we had prototyped many different combat models over the years. Add to that experience a few forays into console development (MDK2 for the Dreamcast and PS2), and we had a team with all the experience required to navigate the pitfalls and rewards for a large, mainstream console RPG.

We leveraged the experience of our team by making use of the personal round-based system (one action per three-second round per character) used in our previous titles. In addition, we had experience in using Dungeons & Dragons’ D20 system to create a satisfying type of party-based combat, something we wanted to replicate in KOTOR. By basing the system on the personal roundbased system of the Star Wars D20 rules, we weren’t trying to reinvent the wheel. Instead, we built upon what had succeeded in the past, adjusting it for the new goals for this particular game. 

We did add highly choreographed combat actions to provide a more action-oriented experience for players. Success in this area would have been much more difficult had we not worked on a similar system for Neverwinter Nights. It’s also worth noting that a number of new, inexperienced people worked on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic; BioWare’s matrix structure mixes new and experienced team members to build an efficient group dynamic.

One of our most important goals was to create a combat system that would be easy to use for a broad cross-section of players. Knowing that LucasArts’ revered Star Wars brand would give the game widespread attention, we wanted to make sure that all types of players — not just experienced console RPG fans — could jump in and have fun.

To this end, we started with an over-the-shoulder view of the action, giving a cinematic view of the surroundings, rather than the top-down view of more traditional PC RPGs we had created in the past. We also needed the combat to look as action-packed as other mainstream games but be controllable through a simple interface. These goals prevented the system and interface from becoming overly complex and added weight to any feedback from QA or focus tests that certain parts of the combat system should be easier to use. Usability testing with fresh perspectives played a large part in the development of the combat system.

We also adjusted our implementation of the Star Wars D20 rules, simplifying the player’s interaction with the rules in a videogame setting. Fortunately our publisher, LucasArts, supported us in this endeavor, and we were able to balance our attention to the D20 rules with playability considerations for mainstream fans. 

In the end, we were surprised at how well the combat system turned out. Even though combat seemed complex at first glance, most people mastered the system before completing the game. Much of the positive feedback we received about the game was from people who have never played role-playing games before.

While the combat system featured personal rounds for each character, we didn’t want it to look like the combatants were taking turns via a strict alternating system (we at BioWare affectionately call this “caveman combat,” where each combatant politely takes turns bonking the other on the head with a large club). To capture the excitement of a Star Wars blaster or lightsaber battle, the action had to look as fluid as possible.

To achieve this kind of realism, we used a “choreographed animation” system for playing our combat animations. Each character would “lock” with one enemy, attacking for part of the round and defending for the other part of the round. Animations were therefore made in 1.5-second choreographed sequences, where one character did an attacking motion and the defender performed the appropriate countermoves. Essentially, combat actions were predetermined and synchronized between interacting combatants.

This meant that characters could do virtually any combat move that you see in the movies, and each attack would be choreographed with the defender’s animations, enabling characters to do spins, backflips, and rapid lightsaber flurries while appearing to interact physically with other characters. Making multiple animations for each combination of weapon types limited excessive repetition.

Choreographed animation was also efficient for the development process. Since both characters were animated in tandem in 3DS Max, animators were able to see exactly how the animations would look in the game, streamlining development of the system and the adjustment of animations. However, it was still essential to review all combat actions within the context of the game engine, to discover any subtle differences in playback within the engine, on both Xbox and PC.

In the early design stages of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic we put a lot of thought into the main interface and how the game would be controlled. Since we were taking a new approach in creating a strategic, party-based console RPG, we couldn’t be absolutely confident in the interface design until we experienced it under true game conditions. As we had learned on many of our past projects, our first attempt at an interface simply initiated a process of repeated iteration (including usually two to three major revisions and multiple smaller iterations of each major revision) that lasted right up until the project was complete.

The first version of the interface was crude, lacking the elegance and simplicity that we later realized was needed. A set of combat actions was attached to each button, which would generate a menu of context-specific combat choices. The complexity was confusing to casual players.

After watching the uninitiated struggle with the first interface at E3 2002, the team leads, QA, and other senior members of the company spent time that fall to record all known concerns about the main interface, which prompted a fundamental change in how we let the player interact with the world during combat.

As a result of this feedback, we decided to create more rigid frameworks for player control. Players could interact with enemies only by entering a combat mode. In combat mode, the camera would focus on the hostile target, and non-hostiles were non-selectable. In addition, we felt it was important to depict the range of possible combat actions to players in the form of an always-visible combat action menu (we extended this to noncombat as well to keep it consistent, and called this the “horizontal action menu”). These two factors made the combat much less confusing, and with the addition of action icons instead of drop-down menus, we finally had an interface that was becoming easy and fun to use.

Between spring 2002 and summer 2003 (when the Xbox version of the game was released; the PC version followed later in 2003), we did around 10 smaller iterations to arrive at the final interface. After the most coarse, time-consuming, radical changes (such as the ones just described), we eventually tunneled down to dozens of smaller changes that took only a few hours to make. We incorporated extensive feedback from QA teams at BioWare and LucasArts, plus valuable feedback from usability and focus testers at Microsoft, internal usability tests at BioWare, and multiple rounds of comments from the press, compiled during various press tours and demos. This iterative process gave us confidence that players would be able to control the game easily, but more importantly, we were starting to have fun playing it ourselves.

One of the main problems with many RPGs is game balance: it is easy to make a game that is perceived as either too difficult or too easy, but balance is elusive. Thus, we sought more effective methods of getting fun-factor feedback from our QA department during the course of development. While we’d used feedback from QA to improve balance and fun factor in previous games, we explored new ways of doing it this time.

We devised a system to document combat feedback that was used extensively by our testers during the last few months of development. These documents listed every combat encounter in the game, and each tester in the QA department filled it out during their playthrough. The document included fields that detailed the general difficulty of each encounter, the amount of credits and experience points they received, and the tactics and Force powers they used to defeat the encounter.

Most of the testers could finish the game in a weeklong session, so at the end of each week we would review all of the data from the QA departments at BioWare and LucasArts . We identified levels that were too easy or too difficult. We looked at the overall treasure allotment and decided whether it needed to be increased or reduced. We also reviewed level progression and then tweaked the experience point system throughout the game. This was an ongoing, repetitive process that lasted through the last few months of development; only through our quality assurance teams’ painstaking effort, where they repeatedly documented combat difficulty, were we able to hone the gameplay experience for both casual and hardcore players.

Balance testing was also aided by BioWare’s and LucasArts’ QA teams’ game-playing skills. Because QA was always trying to plow through the game as quickly as possible, they would discover which Force powers and combat tactics gave them the best playing advantage. Once we identified these overpowered culprits, we’d “nerf” them, forcing the testers to use a broader variety of tactics and powers. By the end of the testing cycle we discovered that people used a very large range of tactics, and no one method proved superior.

Demonstrating the first playable version of the game at E3 2002 uncovered one of our biggest hurdles in the combat system’s development: the graphics and camera angle made the game look so much like an action title that people didn’t intuitively play it in a turnbased manner. Novice players wanted to mash buttons and twirl the thumbsticks during battle, breaking the combat system and making the game look extremely awkward. The interface’s discrete character control enabled players to disrupt their current attack by moving or accidentally selecting a container while attempting to engage the enemy.

We battled this problem to the end of the development cycle, and it required a lot of concerted planning and work to overcome. Carefully controlling the player’s access to gameplay functions in and out of combat produced a more intuitive system, but consumer trade shows are not the place to discover such problems in the first place, and we had to recover from some of the poor press at the show.

The fundamental lesson learned, albeit in retrospect, is that the scale of player actions allowed by a combat system must match the scale of actions on which the system operates; if a combat system is based on doing discrete combat actions at any time (like throwing a single punch or firing a single magic spell, as occurs in our upcoming Xbox RPG Jade Empire), you should allow equivalent “peraction,” low-level player control. Games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic with higher-level strategic systems should actually restrict players to only controlling higher-level strategic actions.

Though we were able to find a good balance between strategic control and ease of use, the final combat system still required considerable player adjustment, because at the time no similar system had been implemented. This uniqueness led us to attempt to train the player in all of the basic control and combat systems in the first few areas of the game. Many players found the complexity of the resulting tutorial areas detracted from their initial immersion in the story.

The tutorial condensed too much information into the first hour of the game, when it would probably have been better for us to spread the tutorial elements throughout three or four hours of gameplay. Not only would this have been better for the flow of the story, but also for the player’s retention of the information. However, a benefit of condensing the tutorial to a small number of areas was that iteration of the tutorial itself (such as rewriting the tutorial text as interface changes occurred) could occur more frequently and be tested separately, with less risk to the overall project.

Another option would have been to include a separate, stand-alone tutorial. We considered this in the initial design meetings for the game but decided against it, fearing too many players would skip the tutorial. To improve the game’s accessibility, we felt console players unfamiliar with PC RPG conventions needed training before getting into the bulk of the game. 

Through an iterative process of implementation, testing, feedback, and redesign, we arrived at a main interface that exceeded our original design goals. That process, however, was extremely lengthy — over one full year — and required a huge amount of manpower, which drove up our development costs. The key missing element from our early paper sketches and graphical mockups was interactivity.

After several iterations of the interface, it became clear that we were simply waiting to see how certain actions would “feel” with the Xbox controller or PC keyboard and mouse, and see how the game would respond. If we had an interactive method for quickly prototyping our ideas, we could have drastically shortened the iteration period. Though we had actually experienced similar issues in all of our past RPGs, KOTOR proved once and for all that more complex RPGs require early hands-on design to develop powerful, transparent, easy-to-use interfaces.

On future RPGs like Jade Empire, we hope to test our interface ideas interactively much earlier in development, so we can work out the “feel” issues well in advance of implementing the interface in the actual game.

One of the challenges in working in a multi-project company like BioWare is that sequencing of resources is a constant learning experience. Over the years we have developed a number of techniques to optimize the use of our matrix personnel system (see Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk’s “Managing Multiple Projects,” GD Magazine March 2003), but there is always room for improvement.

Since the combat system in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was different from anything we had encountered in the past, we planned to mitigate risk with lots of early preproduction and prototyping. We initially planned on putting designers on the project early to prototype gameplay into placeholder areas of the game, but things didn’t pan out as expected. Instead, we ended up doing a fair amount of retroactive design while balancing the requirements for story and event scripting.

To solve this problem on future projects, we now pay closer attention to the planning of personnel scheduling based on what we learned in our past projects’ schedules, with the aim of maintaining adequate staffing throughout each project. In some cases this involves outsourcing or hiring additional staff much earlier than we have in the past, anticipating their need later on in the project and allowing sufficient ramp-up time. Hiring the right staff early enough can actually reduce the overall development time and cost of a project.

Our use of feedback was both a strength and a weakness in the development of KOTOR. While we extensively used team and QA feedback to fine-tune the interface and balance the combat system, there were several areas where we could have made much better use of feedback.

First, our measurement of the game balance was more of an art than a science. We didn’t have adequate metrics in place early enough (or in some cases, ever) to determine whether the game was doing what we wanted it to as players fought enemies, gained experience, and moved up in level. QA testers didn’t have a formalized way to report combatbalancing statistics until the later stages of testing. We also didn’t build enough automated testing systems into the game engine to track statistics on character experience, abilities, and combat encounters.

We also underestimated the importance of the feedback system in the game. Intended only as a means of letting the player know exactly what happened in a tough battle, the message screen that formed the heart of the feedback system wasn’t given much priority. However, during testing, bugs in the feedback system made it extremely difficult for testers to determine whether the game was performing properly (appearances are often deceiving). It required a large amount of work very close to the end of development to make the feedback system work well enough to be used as a testing tool, presenting a significant risk to the schedule. Planning for a clear and robust ingame feedback system much earlier in the project is now something we now consider essential in our RPGs.

Despite the challenges encountered during development, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic ended up being a big success. Microsoft touts the Xbox version of the game as the fastest-selling Xbox title ever released, and the game is also one of the highest-rated RPGs of all time according to Gamerankings. Based on this success, we have high hopes for the PC version, which expands on what we learned in the development of the Xbox version.

In addition, we are actively applying the lessons on what worked well and what didn’t work as well to the three new intellectual properties in development at BioWare, one of which, our recently announced Xbox-exclusive title Jade Empire, will be published by Microsoft.

Credit must be given where it is due: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic’s success is entirely due to the hard work of the team at BioWare and also that of our publisher, LucasArts, who fully supported our development efforts and who shares the high quality standards toward which we were all aiming. The team who worked on the game, like the other teams at BioWare, are all hard-working, smart, creative, passionate individuals, and it is an honor for the authors to work with all of them. Our goal at BioWare is to try to exceed the quality of our past games with each new game we make; we felt we accomplished that with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and we will continue to strive toward this goal in the future.

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: Novato, California

Hello! We’re starting up a new team here at 2K to – surprise! – make a video game. A first-person shooter to be precise. We are a small, scrappy group with a ton of ambition AND the resources to see it realized. That’s pretty rare these days. Think of us like a well-funded startup but without all the gross tech culture trappings. This is an opportunity to join an incredible project on the ground floor.

We’re also hard at work creating a supportive and inclusive culture. Here’s what’s important to us:

Honesty. We do our best to tell it like it is. No information hoarding. No passive-aggressive manipulation. We care about keeping the lines of communication open and uncluttered.

Diversity. Games are better when they are created by people of diverse backgrounds and experiences. Accessibility matters to us – and this is not just about mechanics. All players should be able to relate to the experience we’re creating. And we can’t be more accessible if we’re not actively trying to increase representation on the team and in our game.

Collaboration. So this is on every job posting ever and then the experience is totally the opposite. We’re going to do our best to mean what we say. We’re not sticking people into discipline silos. You’ll probably be working in a pod – collaborating (see!) with people from diverse disciplines and backgrounds.

Opportunity. We believe that people good at what they do shouldn’t be promoted out of their discipline. They should be recognized and rewarded for their talents, not prevented from doing what they excel at. As a result, we’ve instituted a Principal track. You can continue being amazing at what you do without feeling like you’ve hit a dead end or missed out.

Your Well-Being. Work-life balance is important to us and we assume it’s important to you. We’re going to do our best to avoid a lot of the traditional pitfalls that lead to crunch. We’re not into negative reinforcement or creating a culture of fear.

What We Need:
We are looking for a veteran Rendering Engineer to help bring our stylized game to life. You will be working in close collaboration with concept artists, the Art Director, and other engineers to push Unreal Engine 4 towards your combined vision. You will be likely modifying core shaders, developing new rendering technologies, and potentially working to integrate third-party solutions for particular problems. You will be otherwise developing new and interesting systems for world and character rendering.

Who We Think Will Be A Great Fit:
We are looking for someone who can look at a piece of concept art or hear an art director’s pitch and translate that into rendering code, shaders, and systems. You should be comfortable helping to design new tools and systems to achieve artistic visions. You should be equally comfortable thinking about how to make use of offline third-party tools like Houdini and marshalling their data into the runtime. It is important that you are able to effectively communicate directly with artists and help direct them towards performant solutions.

Minimum Requirements:

• 7 years industry or related experience
• 2 or more published titles
• Previous experience working in a senior role as a graphics/rendering engineer.
• Strong 3D Math skills
• Strong C/C++ experience
• Excellent communication skills
• Current and Next Gen game console experience strongly desired
• Strong understanding and familiarity with current Unreal Engine technology desired
• Exposure to third-party tools like Houdini, Substance Painter, and Z-Brush in terms of how they can function in a graphics pipeline

Interested? Apply now.

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