General game developing news and updates.
Noita is Now Available on Steam and is 20% off!*
Noita is a magical action roguelite set in a world where every pixel is physically simulated. Fight, explore, melt, burn, freeze and evaporate your way through the procedurally generated world using spells you’ve created yourself.
*Offer ends October 22 at 10AM Pacific Time
In the last few decades of game development, studios have begun to experiment with different methods of production and more importantly, company leadership.
In this 2018 GDC talk, Criterion Games’ Steve Cuss breaks how the studio began to rethink the concept of leadership, how that helped producers better support the developers who rely on them.
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.
Sony has finally shown off the PlayStation 5 user interface in a new State of Play video, detailing a range of functions that make use of the console’s new SSD.
At the beginning of the video we’re introduced to the PlayStation 5’s control center (pictured), which can be used to resume games instantly while granting immediate access to downloads, friends lists and more.
This area also contains ‘cards’ that can be used to interact with games and the system in a variety of useful ways. For instance, the news card highlights recent stories relating to chosen titles, while another displays recent media that’s been captured using the DualSense’s create button.
Other cards, however, are more dynamic. They’re called ‘activities,’ and they’re part of Sony’s plan to “remove barriers to gameplay” by granting quick access to specific levels or modes while displaying additional information like key objectives or the estimated time until a level is completed.
They can even be used to access official hints and tips that take the form of videos, screenshots, or text that can be displayed on-screen (in picture-in-picture mode or side-view) during gameplay. These ‘Game Help’ tips will only be available to PlayStation Plus subscribers, but should make supported titles more accessible.
New interactive notifications can also be used to join parties and access screen sharing in-game, giving players “persistent spaces to connect” all without ever having to minimize the game screen.
You’ll get a better sense of how these features come together by checking out the full 12 minute video (embedded above), but it’s clear Sony wants to deliver easy-to-access controls without kicking gameplay to the curb.
The free Cocos Creator game engine just got a heavy duty upgrade today, with the release of Cocos Creator 3D technical preview. This release adds an all new 3D game engine to Cocos Creator, which was previously a 2D only game engine. The new underlying 3D engine has a complete PBR based rendering workflow based on real world lighting and camera models, with a modular design with support for terrain and physics out of the box.
Details from the Cocos Blog:
The technology behind games has grown exponentially since the birth of video games. Today with the creation of cloud computing, 5G networks, and faster mobile computers, the revolution to bring better 3D titles to your hands has become overwhelmingly apparent to game developers.
The Cocos engine started as a 2D game engine. In Cocos2d-x, we built the best open-source 2D engine in the world. We also tried to build 3D features upon the 2D-oriented architecture. But due to the lack of an editor and the challenge of growth on 3D features, it wasn’t very successful. That’s why we were determined to build an excellent editor tool: Cocos Creator. It was initially for 2D game development. But since 2017, we have already started to build a pure 3D engine for this tool. To push ourselves to give developers the best 3D development tool, we have re-designed the whole engine architecture and updated the editor’s core. On October 15th, 2019, we released Cocos Creator 3D, a dedicated experimental branch of China’s product. With a whole year’s effort, we have greatly improved the 3D engine architecture. We are finally merging the experimental 3D branch into the main Cocos Creator product to forge the awesome Cocos Creator 3.0, released later this year.
You can download Cocos Creator 3.0 preview for Windows and Mac now. Do be aware however there are a few caveats, especially for existing Cocos Creator developers:
If you are interested in learning about Cocos Creator in general we have a tutorial series available on DevGa.me. You can see the new Cocos Creator 3.0 tech preview in action in the video below. A good place to start is the Cocos examples project available on GitHub. If you want to test Cocos Creator 3.0 using the same model as in the video, that model is available for free here on Sketchfab.
Project Cars Go, the one-touch racing game from Slightly Mad Studios, is now in closed beta for iOS and Android users. The closed beta period started on October 14 and will end on October 27, giving players plenty of time to test their racing skills against the toughest opponents the road has to offer.
Unlike Slightly Mad Studios’ console games Project Cars 1 & 2, which focused on being a fully fledged driving simulator, Project Cars Go aims to simplify the complex mechanics of racing while maintaining an aspect of realism. Project Cars Go allows players to take a spin in 50 licensed cars on 12 unique tracks, three of which are based on real-world races.
The one-touch racing mechanic in Project Cars Go allows players to drive with ease no matter where they are. Here’s what Ian Bell, CEO at Slightly Mad Studios has to say about this feature: “Condensing the key moments of what a driver does out on the track—brakes, entry-points, exit points—into a ‘One Touch’ mechanic was an interesting project for us at the studio, as we wanted to retain the authenticity of the Project CARS franchise but cater for what our fans want on a racer they can play on the go.”
Unfortunately, if you didn’t sign up to the closed beta then it looks like you won’t be playing Project Cars Go any time soon. Currently, there is no release date for the full game. In the meantime, check out this trailer, which debuts new gameplay.
If you weren’t one of the selected players to join Project Cars Go closed beta, definitely check out our best mobile multiplayer games list, which features a number of racing games. There should be something you fancy on that list no matter what device you happen to own.
<!– –>
Gamasutra is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC
This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC’s registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.
For many new grads, we all want to get out and start our careers. However, 2020 wasn’t the most welcoming year. Everyone is working remotely and the job searching process became harsher on those who lack experience, especially in the games industry. I managed to have some success and wanted to share it with my fellow recent grads.
First Step: Finding the Right Network (and taking advantage of it!)
In July 2020, I signed up to be a mentee through the Games Research and User Experience (GRUX) Mentorship program. There are lots of great resources there to read through. They also have a Discord that is very welcoming to new grads.
I wanted to get a better understanding of UX Design in games and see if this was the field for me. I had questions like:
What happens behind the scenes?
What part of my UX self-education will I use in games UX?
What are some skills I should work on as I job search?
How do you work with clients?
In about a week, I got an email from my mentor, Jason Schklar. He’s one of the founders at UX is Fine! and a Game & UX Consultant. We chatted a bit regarding what I want to learn more about and he suggested that I intern at his company. At the time, I wanted to keep my expectations low – it’s just an idea and there is no guarantee that I will be an intern. But, it made me happy that someone wanted to give me a chance in the game dev industry. This was my first lesson from Jason: 1) Find a network and don’t be afraid to use it!
Initial Internship Expectations
By August 2020, I not only gained a mentor but an opportunity to intern at my mentor’s company! I’ll be honest – I didn’t expect to get an internship of some kind this way.
Before the internship began, I sent over my initial goals:
“As an intern at UX is Fine, these are my goals:
Understand the UX workflow at a games UX studio.
Build up my skills by assisting with client projects.
Network and learn more about how the field came to be.”
I shared my goals with them and, in turn, they gave me their goals:
“For UX is Fine, they want an internship for the following reasons:
Identify new talent
The current team is mostly top-heavy with senior designers, researchers, and more.
Want to teach others about the field
Art
Traditional UX
Game Design
Share what we do.”
By outlining our goals, it helped us organize what we want to get out of this partnership. I personally believe that interns can provide a lot of perspective into how an organization is run. Afterall, interns see the company environment in a fresh light. So for those interns out there, be confident in yourselves – you’re providing more to the company than you anticipate!
Onboarding
Before I logged into their Slack, I had to fill out some paperwork since this was a paid internship. This is routine for those who get jobs, but this took me by some surprise – it’s common for businesses to take in unpaid interns. Jason explained to me that UX is Fine! believes in paying for all work created. To be honest, this made me feel more inspired and motivated to help as much as I can. It also helped me set good standards for myself: 2) I deserve to be respected and well-compensated even as a junior. It’s important for seniors to help juniors set this standard for themselves so that junior game developers know what is good and bad for them. In the long run, this gives the next generation of game developers better preparation and will help them focus on how to improve the game industry.
There was also an additional piece of paperwork that I was unfamiliar with: nondisclosure agreements. I often saw memes discussing NDAs and saw that it didn’t give game developers credit – it’s frustrating when many jobs want to see a shipped title. Nonetheless,these agreements are set in place to protect both the client and the contractor involved. For one, investors on the client-side do not like to see work being contracted out. If you’re blamed for potential theft of intellectual property, it’s a big deal. Overall, 3NDAs don’t just protect the clients – they protect you too.
Here’s an article that details non-disclosure agreements more: How NDAs Work and Why They’re Important.
The First Week
For the first week, I was a bit unsure on what to do – for one, after syncing the calendar, there was a specific meeting called a “Stand-Up Meeting”.This was actually the first time I heard of Stand-Up Meetings; the staff shares their progress with each other and reconvene regarding meetings with clients. They are typically quick 30 minute meetings. Apparently, this concept is a part of Agile Project Development and allows team members to sync up on what everyone is doing. I like this activity since it made everything transparent between team members. This definitely gave me insight on how game dev teams actually work together.
If you’re more curious about Stand-Up Meetings, feel free to read this: Atlassian Team Playbook. It also gives many tidbits of Agile Project Development, so I recommend using this as a resource!
In the meantime, I did playthroughs of “the project” (I can’t talk about it yet, see the NDA point above) and wrote my observations. At first, I didn’t really understand the intention of this – I wanted to analyze the game right away. Nonetheless, the UX Director I shadowed, Neil Edwards, informed me that it’s important to 4) play the game as a player first and as a UX Designer second. He wanted me to develop my senses as a player first so that I can better investigate issues with a game. It seemed basic, but the basics served as the foundations. There’s no point in being a UX Designer if I can’t identify the right problems to solve.
Nonetheless, identifying issues that I caught helped the UX Designer I shadowed, Frank Lepkowski, since I provided a perspective that he and others may not have observed. It also gave me practice and reassurance that my observations are helpful – as a junior, I can lack confidence in my observations. I can have thoughts like “are they actually valid observations to take into consideration”? By getting feedback at appropriate times, they showed me that I’m on the right track and to believe in myself as a UX Designer.
The Next Two Weeks: My Main Project
For the next two weeks, I was trusted to outline and provide feedback on the overall User Journey. I focused on a specific section of the NDA project by recording gameplay, outlining the screens, and having three stages of commentary. The first stage of commentary are my initial reactions – what happened here? What was my reaction? My second stage was to rewrite these initial reactions into more objective statements from a UX Design perspective – why did I react this way? Why is this a problem? The third stage was to summarize the main issues based on the specific objective statements I made. These main issues are what needs to be addressed in the UX Design.
This exercise is really important for me to go over since I mostly taught myself UX Design through online courses – I needed feedback from someone more senior than me. Through this exercise, I learned that I still struggle to make objective feedback from the user’s perspective. I need to practice making them more. It’s important since these types of statements hold UX Designers accountable to provide actionable feedback to clients. 5) Without objective feedback, the feedback can easily turn into an opinionated debate; it’s more productive to focus on the user.
The Last Week
In the last week, I was able to see how UX is Fine! Interacts with their clients. These meetings were shockingly fast-paced. It showed me that you really needed to be attentive and respectful. It was completely different compared to talking to coworkers. I reflected on this with the UX Designer I shadowed and he also shared similar feelings when he was first onboarded. For each person involved, they have their own kind of lingo for the same concept – it took awhile for everyone to understand when they first started their careers. I also saw disagreements between the parties involved. By observing my seniors, I learned that the best way to tackle these is to 6) aim for the long-term when it comes to business relationships.
Nonetheless, based on what I observed in the stakeholder meeting, 7) most game development teams are interdependently collaborative. It’s difficult to work on a project alone especially when you wish to monetize the game, so you need to rely on individuals who are able to talk through their process and work on their own section without being micromanaged.
Post-Mortem
On my last day, we reviewed the overall internship experience. I felt like I did as best as I could, but both sides agreed on one thing: the internship should be longer. It taught us the importance of internships in the long-run. It also really helped to 8) be transparent about your goals early on. It’s easier to measure whether or not a work experience was successful for both parties involved.
For me, I felt like I needed to learn more – if anything, it taught me that I should take up a UX Designer job in any industry, improve my craft, and try next time. For many of the people at UX is Fine!, they transitioned from other industries into game development; it’s ok to not be in game development right away. If anything, I can be a hobbyist game developer. Nonetheless, the next step for me is to find a job where I can continue to grow and contribute to a company.
Overall Lessons
Find a network and don’t be afraid to use it!
I deserve to be respected and well-compensated even as a junior.
NDAs not just protect the clients – it protects you too.
Be a player first then a UX Designer.
Without objective feedback, the feedback can easily turn into an opinionated debate.
Aim for the Long-Term when it comes to Business Relationships.
Most Game Development Teams are Interdependently Collaborative.
Be transparent about your goals.
<!–
Extra Div –>
<!– –>
Gamasutra is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC
This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Informa PLC’s registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.
As games continue to flood onto platforms like Steam, many developers are trying to make their games look even more expansive, complex and replayable to justify people buying them.
Not so the 10mg (Ten Minute Games) project, which is a series of 10 microgames from different teams that each take 10 minutes to play, all launching simultaneously on Thursday, October 15th:
announcing 10mg! 💊
a collection of ten games, each ten minutes long, made by ten amazing teams. releasing October 15
check out the games:
✨ https://t.co/ReZTfIbiCH
💖 https://t.co/YhFv81R9fp pic.twitter.com/ZjWKHkwvyx— 10mg 💊 (@10mingames) October 1, 2020
So you have to wonder – what’s the ethos and concept behind this idea, and why would you deliberately brand your games as being incredibly short, especially with Steam refunds for games played for less than 2 hours being relatively ‘relaxed’? To find out, I chatted to dev Stuffed Wombat (Qomp), who started 10mg, about the project.
Q: What was the particular point that you wanted to make when you set up 10mg?
10mg is a psyop. The goal is not to make money, or to immediately convince people that short, experimental games are worthwhile. It would be great if that happened, but 10mg is primarily about shifting the overton window of the game length discussion.
There is a lot of amazing, groundbreaking work being done by game developers, but we are encouraged to hide that work, serving it up very slowly over long playtimes. If a game is less than two hours long, people can refund it. From a consumer perspective, this is amazing, but for developers it means that the two hour mark is something sacred, something that has to be crossed to have a shot at the ever elusive sustainability. And beyond that, games are often treated merely as entertainment, competing to provide ever-lower cost-per-hours-entertained.
If we can sell 10 minute long games on Steam, maybe other developers will be less scared about their game’s length. Maybe they will refrain from padding their game’s playtime with repetitive gameplay. If people enjoy some of our games, maybe they will give other short games a shot.
Q: How did you consider contributing developers, and would you like to highlight 3 or 4 devs and examples of their previous work (with links) so we can get an idea of their output?
A lot of the developers that I admire are extremely ‘underground’, meaning that they are prolific and have been making games for a long time, but never got admiration or recognition from the mainstream indie scene.
When I started 10mg, I simply asked them if they wanted to participate.
Sylvie for example makes games that are aggressively different, too many great games to choose just one. Her uncompromisingly cute framing allows for the creation of games that are decisively open and untempered. There is a thin line between simple and genius and Sylvie walks that tightrope without a care in the world.
Then there’s Droqen, best known for Starseed Pilgrim, and whose blog I fell in love with right after playing his amazing Oubliettes. There is something that is very loose and free about Droqen’s designs, but I think it comes from great attention to detail and care.
And Torcado I have known for a long time. His major project is Heckdeck, which is both unconventional and deeply familiar in a weird way. What he has done for 10mg as a whole, organisationally, is amazing, and his game “:)” is a definite highlight of the project for me.
Q: Obviously, you had to (collectively) spend $1,000 just on getting the Steam pages set up for this game, correct? Are you expecting to make this money back easily?
We never assumed that 10mg would make any money. A few of us who are less poor have offered to help out people who couldn’t pay the $100 at all, but in the end everyone managed somehow.
After the positive response to the announcement, we are cautiously optimistic that we will recoup our money, but in the end, hopefully 10mg will pay for itself in the very long run, by changing the way small games as a whole are perceived, consumed, and funded.
Q: Did you find that Steam has good tools for this type of ‘group submissions of games’ process, or did you have to work around some issues? (Are you using bundles?)
Steam has no tools for any such thing! The 10mg collective has worked insanely hard to help everyone get their game on Steam on their own. This meant we had to corral 10 developers into all having their store page approved by a certain date, build approved by another, which in turn meant organising shared imagery and assets ahead of time. We’ve dealt with nonsense pushbacks from Steam about issues that were already fixed.
We have also bundled all the games together, which was an additional hassle since that process simply happens over email, but everyone’s pages have to already be up to scratch, and the release date needs to be a certain distance away, and so on. The platform is really not prepared for a 10-game launch-day bundle.
But since Steam gives a baseline of exposure to each title, it was important for us to upload the games separately, for maximum reach. If we’d all used the same engine we could have made it a single product, but that would also mean that one of us would receive all of the funds then have to regularly pay nine other developers their share for the next however many years. Not fun (or viable).
Overall I can only say that Steamworks is a pain in the butt that you can begrudgingly get used to. The documentation is super old and I wish Steam would invest a fraction of the money they make in making Steamworks work better.
Q: Do you think there’s a ‘short, high concept game’ scene that exists independent of the Steam game scene? Is that good, or do you think they should move closer together?
I do not perceive it as a concrete scene, but more as a loose collection of individuals and collectives that are exploring games in different directions. The games they make are mostly very short and end up on itch.io, available for free or pay-what-you-want or next to nothing.
Where these groups value expression and exploration, Steam as a platform cares only about making as much money as possible. Steam does not care about ‘scenes’ it cares only about genres.
Steam has a lot of users, many of which might be very interested in the weird and the wonderful, but I feel as if smaller developers have given up on the platform by default.
Releasing on Steam is an insanely tedious process compared to simply putting a game on itch.io with a few clicks, costs a fair amount (especially for devs in less wealthy economies), and right now it does not seem to be worth it if you do not make something that has mass appeal.
Previously, these sorts of games flourished on Newgrounds, Armor Games, Kongregate, etc. The sites generated ad revenue, and creators were often paid by the site for their games. The scene evolved around the F2P model well before that really existed in mainstream games. Now, as the audience has moved to Steam, sites aren’t particularly paying for that content, and the people making these doses of originality are battling for survival.
With ad revenue not being a viable option for tiny projects on Steam, and implementation of micro-transactions being complex and inherently affecting the design of the game, we think what needs to happen is that people inside Steam’s majority ecosystem get used to slinging a few dollars at short games. That’s really the overarching goal of all this.
On Steam, they already have their card details or wallet credit sitting right there, and if they hate the game, fine, get a refund. That’s really okay. But we need to seed that pattern of behaviour, show people that it’s a viable way to spend a 30 minute gap on your day off.
What I would love to see is the creation of a bridge between the two camps. The best thing that could happen would be Steam adding a “short game” genre, allowing consumers who are looking for concrete and finite experiences to find and buy them.
Q: Finally, just highlight 3 or 4 of the games that are debuting (with links) and explain why they are your favorites?
First up, as I mentioned before, there’s Torcado’s ‘:)’ (pronounced ‘smile’), with sound by Bibiki. It’s this very meta exploration of the 10mg idea, a collection of well-known, simple minigames but connected by a fourth-wall breaking twist. I’m reluctant to spoil it beyond that, but it demands to be played.
Secondly, I absolutely love Droqen’s HANDMADEDEATHLABYRINTH issue 0. Droqen is well known for crafting intricate, deeply interconnected systems, and here he’s artfully displaying his take on the roguelike genre, except it’s handmade, not procedural, and it has way more systems than any ten-minute game has any right to.
Finally I’m really pleased that Slasher, Interrupted by Softerror Interactive made it into the collection. It’s the most pop-friendly piece of work from this team, an opportunity to really grab eyeballs for their other work. It tells a campfire horror story interrupted by your girlfriends, where interjections branch the story in dramatically different directions.
Q: What’s next after this for 10mg?
We will take a break.
I had to take on a lot of other work right after starting 10mg. 10mg would have died without the engagement of literally everyone else on the team. Almost everyone took leadership of something at some point, and it was a beautiful thing to see.
Especially before the announcement of 10mg, some of us worked way too hard preparing everything. The first thing to do after release is to figure out how to keep that from ever happening again.
There is a lot of interest from developers to participate in a Season 2 of 10mg, and current team members are keen on it, so in one form or the other it will probably happen. Personally, I would be really interested in doing 20mg with bigger teams, longer development times and higher production value (Please contact us if you want to fund that ^^).
But in the end, even if the brand of 10mg disappears, there are always going to be people who are exploring the edges of game dev in short (maybe even 10 minute long) games.
<!–
Extra Div –>
The first-ever GDC Masterclass courses will take place December 3 and 4, 2020!
The GDC Masterclass program comprises of day-long virtual workshops delivering in-depth trainings around some of the most important challenges facing game developers today. The live virtual courses go beyond high-level theory allowing attendees to take away practical experience that can be applied immediately on return to the studio.
Every year at GDC, hundreds of developers offer short, incredible lectures that capture a slice of the game-making process. In the Masterclass program, those lectures are expanded into interactive classes that foster relationships between attendees and world-class game industry experts. Take a look!
December 3rd, 2020
December 4th, 2020
These classes aim to help developers overcome key challenges faced in taking game ideas from conception to release. Have you struggled to make a compelling trailer that sells your game? Are you a newly-promoted senior who needs lessons on leadership? Have you plotted out a great story that just isn’t quite clicking with your gameplay?
These are just some of the challenges GDC Masterclasses can help you overcome.
Space is limited, so act fast to secure your registration!
For more information on the GDC Masterclass program, be sure to visit our website or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.
Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent company Informa Tech
Recently discussed on the Godot website, several new features have been added to the Godot 4 GPU accelerated particle systems. New features include:
While we are going to have to wait until Godot 4 to get our hands-on the new Godot 4 in a production environment, we can check out the new GPUParticles3D node in action by building from the nightly source. That is exactly what we did in the video below, check it out for a preview and a mini tutorial on using particles in Godot 4.
Blizzard employees in France are preparing to strike over the company’s decision to close its office in Versailles.
Less than two weeks ago, Bloomberg reported that the World of Warcraft developer would completely shut down its Versailles site, which among other things handles marketing, customer support, and localization, after plans to relocate employees to London fell through due to Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a statement sent to Gamasutra, Blizzard said it intended to “reorganize its activities” in Versailles, and had informed its employee representatives of the proposed project.
Following that announcement, workers from the Versailles office are being called to strike by their elected unions to “defend our jobs and save our company.”
The call to strike, which has been circulating on social media, claims 285 people are at risk of losing their job, and alleges that Blizzard may have ulterior motives for wanted to wind down operations in France and move to the UK.
“As you know, after repeatedly denying closing plans before both the employees and the French administration, the management just announced their will to execute a clearly long thought plan to stop all activities in France cutting 285 jobs,” reads the document. “This comes as a shock for employees who were not expecting that announcement.
“In these times of COVID crisis, it is inconceivable to send 285 people on an employment market in turmoil. In less than 2 years, the management cut 133 jobs in 2019 with the INDIGO plan which was canceled in court (as demanded by your representatives), and then tried in March 2020 to cut even more jobs with project GEMINI, but had to give up.
“The closing of the French company, supposed to preserve competitiveness in a group that is already leading its industry, seems even more absurd as the video game industry has suffered less than many others from the COVID-19 crisis, and even benefited from the confinement times that increased their overall earnings.
“The will to avoid European tax rules by creating an ABK hub away from Europe in London seems a more probably explanation.”
The unions are demanding that Blizzard cancel the closure project and strive to create a more positive workplace environment. We’ve reached out to the company for comment.
