Cross Gamer blogs

Global Game Jam: move mouse to fulfill destiny

Dan Roy — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:03:21 -0700

This weekend was the Global Game Jam , and the Boston site, MIT's GAMBIT , had about 25 developers. My team of 3 made a game called move mouse to fulfill destiny. We tied for favorite game of the devs in Boston, and seem to be picking up some good reviews among the blogs. You can download it from the official site , or play it online here. My wonderful teammates were: Will Jennings - Programming, Design, Art, and Filippo Beck Peccoz - Music.

The press so far:
Independently Speaking - Best of Global Game Jam
Tiny Subversions - Move Mouse to Fulfill Destiny
Play This Thing - Move Mouse to Fulfill Destiny

It also seems to have found its way into a college course:IT University Copenhagen: Game Culture

GDC: Connecting Mobile Games and MMOs

Dan Roy — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 00:44:31 -0700

Last Tuesday, I presented at the 2008 Game Developers Conference in the mobile track about the best ways of connecting mobile games and MMOs. Here are my slides (PowerPoint file). Gamasutra wrote a surprisingly thorough summary. The session was well-attended; among the audience were several large MMO developers who have yet to announce their mobile plans. It will be interesting to see which directions they go with mobile.

Thesis interview with Cardell Kerr

Dan Roy — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:46:10 -0600

Dan Roy: Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions, Cardell. Let's jump right in. When working on Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO), did you think at all about mobile (e.g. checking auctions via WAP or SMS)?

Cardell Kerr: Absolutely! The simple fact is that these games prosper off of continued investment from the player, and there are few mechanics that foster this better than allowing a person to ping an auction house, or allow for some form of online trade. Ultimately, we decided to focus on the heart of the game more so (questing and combat), knowing we could add more support for other options later.

Dan Roy: Like you said, mobile is great for keeping people connected to the game world and thinking about it, like pinging an auction house. However, it's also potentially powerful for another kind of interaction. As social as MMOs are, people generally have to be in their respective homes at their desktop computers to socialize in the game online. Mobile could allow people to socialize face-to-face and in the game online at the same time. Have you thought about any features like that? A one-on-one duel of some kind via mobile could be fun if players aren't near each other and even more fun if they are.

Cardell Kerr: We've certainly thought about it, though in all fairness the design of most current Big Budget MMPs [MMP is another term for MMO] doesn't support it all that well, since most of our gameplay drives play cycles of 40-90 minutes. I think LOTRO is more likely to branch into the web mini-game space before it fully embraces/utilizes mobile phones.

Dan Roy: Given that "these games prosper off of continued investment from the player," why have you targeted most of your gameplay toward cycles of 40-90 minutes? I know that's pretty standard with today's MMOs, but play sessions of that length can't easily occur continually throughout the day. If you wanted to attract players who wanted shorter but more frequent interaction, how would you design it? Would you put those players in the same world as the ones playing for 40-90 minutes at a time, or would you make these two separate games?

Cardell Kerr: Heh, a very good question. Mostly it's because the MMO of today's world is anything but casual/easy to get into, in addition to the fact that the target audience supports that model (currently). As I've gotten older, I've realized (sometimes painfully) that play times of that long are quite simple impossible to maintain for a person with a very busy work schedule... This is probably one of the reasons why more recent MMO's have been a great deal more solo friendly, though their timelines still skew into the "play for an hour, or don't bother" category. As for how I'd aim for the casual audience, I would make a separate game. The simple fact is that you want to make a game EASY for a casual audience to sample, play, and meet up with their friends. Most MMO's, while getting better, aren't quite at the IRC level yet, and IRC is pretty daunting to the casual player. Making something easy is ironically, quite hard. ;)

Dan Roy: Now that we've discussed mobile a bit, let's talk about the browser. I know LOTRO has some innovative features that allow players to access data or aspects of the game from a web browser. What was the discussion around how to use the web browser to extend the game? Is there more you would like to do with the browser?

Cardell Kerr: Ahh, well currently we're pushing on the concept of the Lorebook, a construct in LOTRO that allows you to view object/monster lists, quest lists, and NPC lists. In the future, we'd like to push this even further, by adding a Google map analog, and personal character stats. Ultimately, we wanted to ensure that we were providing all the key information we could as to how to play our game. As it stands, these games are large, intimidating amounts of information, and breaking them down into easy to parse chunks is a wise thing, from both a product standpoint, and from a consumer one.

Dan Roy: People probably only have the 3D game client installed on one computer at home, but they can access a web browser from many different places. Have you thought about designing any kinds of interactions with the game that could also or only happen through a web browser? Even checking auctions, as you've considered enabling on mobile, could be fun from a browser. Browser activities could allow people to play or check in on the game in some limited capacity from laptops, computer labs, or workplace PCs that don't have fast graphics cards.

Cardell Kerr: Heh, See above! Anyhow, I actually want to push the web game element of LOTRO as we move forward, especially since I can see it integrating with the elements of account advancement we already have. Sure, there are some very good standard elements (such as checking auctions, mail, character stats, online status), but I would be very excited to allow for mini games that allow Destiny point accrual, or other achievements that fuel your account in some way.

Dan Roy: Speaking of achievements, what do you think motivates players most to invest in improving a character in LOTRO, whether it be leveling, getting better gear, joining a better guild, or anything else? Do you think seeing oneself become more masterful is a major part of that? How much of a priority was it for the LOTRO team to make sure players could clearly see their own increasing mastery (both in their avatar's abilities and their own skills)? How much of a priority was it to make this increasing mastery more socially visible - to group members, guildmates, the whole server, and the whole game population across servers?

Cardell Kerr: Hrm, that's a difficult question. Well, when it comes to games, I think the reason why people invest time is initially recreational fun, and if that actually sticks, they normally begin to pursue mastery of the game (in the case of RPGs this is often to see a story unfold, or for tournament games, its to destroy the competition, and lastly, for toy type games, it's to complete whatever aspirations they have for the construct their assembling, whether it be a city, or a sim lifestyle). In terms of social cliques, it's all about showing people your stuff. MMPs tend to combine these two elements, making it impossible to separate "showing off stuff" from mastery of the game. If anything, I'd go so far as to say that "throwing the ring in the volcano doesn't mean as much, if you don't have proof." This is one of the main reasons we pursued so many avenues of advancement. Most games just have equipment, whereas we have equipment, traits, titles, emotes, and even skills. All of those are important, because they allow players to show off cool new things as a part of their own identity.

Dan Roy: That's great that you have so many different avenues for advancement. The people you come across in the game may be impressed with your advancements, however there are lots of people you might not come across. What if I wanted to build a balanced guild from the pool of everyone on the server so we have people who, combined, have advanced along all the different avenues? Have you thought about making those kinds of skills and advancements more visible to the whole server?

Cardell Kerr: This is one of the elements of the Lorebook we're already planning: the ability for character stats to be exported and reported on in a web browser, thus allowing them to publish their achievements. From there, we can rank characters based on those achievements, enabling everyone to see who hit level 50 first, or most recently, who completed all the deeds in the game, etc... In addition, we also allow people to opt out of the reporting, as we do respect privacy. ;)

Dan Roy: One last question. How do you see the MMO genre evolving and how would you like it to evolve?

Cardell Kerr: Well, currently, I think we're seeing some patterns emerge that look achingly familiar among the "hardcore" gamer. Back in the late 90's, they entered the RTS Market with a humongous bang, and boosted development costs so high (in order to compete), that people made some very expensive decisions that just didn't pan out. Additionally, everyone wanted to get into the RTS market because everyone wanted to be the next 'Warcraft". The MMO space is in a very similar location right now, as Blizzard has a tendency to set the pace for PC games. As a result, I think the near term MMO space is going to get crowded with some very expensive (and possibly unsuccessful) titles in the future. We all know that standing toe to toe with Blizzard is... well, hard.

As for where I would like the MMO space to go? That's a very interesting question. I'm actually of the opinion that finding a solid element on the console is probably where it's at. At the end of the road, the console already has mass appeal, and they have proven that they can roll other entertainment functions into them (PS2 with a DVD player, Xbox/PS3 with their Bluray/HDDvD elements). Once that's proven, I think we will start to see a large amount of games coming into resolution, each one in a viable, social environment. Anything we can do to push the social space to allow for more than just "men in tights" is a good thing, but I am especially interested in achieving that without have to make boutique budgets, as the current space is either 30 million or 2.

Dan Roy: Thanks for the interview, Cardell.

Thesis interview with Raph Koster

Dan Roy — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 11:25:26 -0600

Dan Roy: Thanks for participating in this conversation, Raph. Let's talk MMOs. Throughout your career with MMOs, did you think at all about mobile (e.g. checking auctions via WAP or SMS)? What possibilities with mobile excite you, if any?

Raph Koster: Every project I've ever been on except for the very earliest ones, there was the question of what, if anything, we could expose via mobile. Ideas like letting people check friends online, check status of auctions, do crafting, and so on, were always common proposals.

Personally, I suspect that mobile is going to rapidly grow into being more than just a minor adjunct in the sense that those proposals imply. I think there will be full-blown mobile clients to virtual worlds.

Dan Roy: I agree completely that mobile will become more than just a minor adjunct and we will see full-blown mobile clients to virtual worlds. How do you think players on mobile clients will interact with players on more robust clients like desktops, laptops, and consoles? Will cross-platform interactions emphasize asymmetric roles and reduced time pressure to even the playing field across different interfaces?

Raph Koster: There's really as many answers to that as there are possible platforms… obviously, mobile platforms tend to be much more limited not only in their rendering capabilities but also in their interfaces and their network capabilities. Until there's greater parity, I think it is safe to say that the roles played online by users on different clients will have to be different.

Dan Roy: How much of a priority have features been that allow players to access data from or aspects of the game from a web browser? Do you see the browser as an opportunity to let players interact with MMOs from any computer? What opportunities does that create?

Raph Koster: Oddly, web integration with server backends is something that has come slowly and grudgingly. It took a long time for stuff like UO's guild metrics, DAoC's player metrics, and so on to show up. Now of course, the SOE "Players" offerings and the WoW metrics site have opened up quite a lot. I suspect that some of the reluctance has come from the tradition of embedding everything into the server. In the old mud servers, discussions forums were in-game, mail was in-game, and so on. What metrics existed were also exposed in-game, rather than via the web.

Similarly, I think that the pattern of requiring dedicated clients has precluded a lot of the thinking around web clients. I've written before about how by nature, virtual worlds want to be streaming – that's effectively what a text-based protocol IS, and that's how these worlds got their start. A true streaming protocol that was client-agnostic would open up the door for web-based clients, as well as much more – alternate clients, vertical applications for clients, and so on.

Dan Roy: What will it take to really open the door for all of these different ways of accessing a streaming world? Are we more likely to see many different access methods being developed by the studios that first create the virtual worlds, by other studios or individuals if the stream is opened up?

Raph Koster: Well, the core thing needed is really some standards on protocols. Right now, so much of the thinking around virtual worlds by the big developers is around walled gardens that typically, they don't even share network protocols within one publisher. Having common standards will be a pretty dramatic shift, but it is one I am sure is coming.

Dan Roy: How does the player experience change to be able to access the stream in many convenient ways? This would let players stay immersed in the virtual world more of the time and further blur the boundaries between game and life, right?

Raph Koster: Yes, it would. But more importantly, it would open the virtual world to lots of other kinds of interactions. Picture virtual worlds that can spit out game data as web services – or that you can access functionality from a browser. A network stream that could be directed to multiple clients at once that have very different display methods, like a tactical view versus a first-person view – the military is always asking for this capability.

Ironically, virtual world developers have done this a lot – they all have tool clients, and network testing clients, and the like, that monitor the health of the world using radically different displays.

Dan Roy: What do you think motivates players most to invest in improving a character in MMOs, whether it be leveling, getting better gear, joining a better guild, or any other way. Do you think seeing oneself become more masterful is a major part of that? How much of a priority has it been on your various projects to make sure players could clearly see their own increasing mastery (both in their avatar's abilities and their own skills)? How much of a priority was it to make this increasing mastery more socially visible - to group members, guildmates, the whole server, and the whole game population across servers?

Raph Koster: A sense of progress is critical to keeping players engaged in any game. Designers pay a lot of attention to providing that feedback. The sense of mastery can actually be conveyed in many different ways – levels and gear are far from the only ones. In more social settings, mastery can be measured by size of the friends list, for example, or by number of greetings when logging in, or by social influence.

It's always been important to present something of this sort to players in order to set social context. It's incredibly important that other players be able to see your level of achievement and respond appropriately. Doing it across servers is less important than doing it within the frame of reference of a given player, though – it's more important to get the social feedback from the people you interact with, than it is to have a game-wide leaderboard. Very few people reach the top on a large leaderboard, and it can have the opposite effect from what is intended, forcing the player to realize that their mastery is in fact nothing special.

Dan Roy: Can you give some examples of design choices you made, in spite of other drawbacks, that favor enabling increasing mastery or making it more visible to players and social networks? Can you give examples of the reverse, where you sacrificed increasing mastery or visibility for something else?

Raph Koster: Hmm. Certainly, in the general sense showing relative mastery is a good thing, but not always. So leaderboards is the classic example. Sometimes you create inadvertent leaderboards – for example, in UO we had bounties for playerkillers. The bounties were posted in town so that you could see who to hunt. But we sorted based on the amount, which made it into a high-score table of sorts – who could get the largest bounty? The result was that playerkillers went and worked to climb that achievement ladder. We ended up hiding it because it promoted the opposite of the behavior we wanted.

Dan Roy: Thanks for the interview, Raph.

In addition to designing MMOs, Raph writes a great blog.

My Media in Transition Presentation: Constructing Identities of Mastery in Games

Dan Roy — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 08:43:57 -0600

This Saturday I presented at MIT's Media in Transition 5 conference. The presentation covered identity construction, something I've been focusing on in my thesis. Gene Koo, Fellow at Harvard Law, summarized the presentation on his blog. Here's my own shorter summary for the conference program. I also moderated a panel:

Reimagining Identity
Anne Petersen, Perez Hilton and the New Star Production
Thomas Riccio, Trickster Reality
Agnieszka Wenninger, Deleuzian Perspectives on Ownership and Identity on the Web
Moderator: Dan Roy

GDC: I Moderated an Impromptu Roundtable about Mobile and Cross-Platform MMOs

Dan Roy — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 23:56:25 -0600

Kyu C. Lee from Gamevil wasn't able to make it to his scheduled session on the mobile MMO Path of a Warrior (I interviewed Allen Lee last year about this same game). This was due to a scheduling miscommunication between Kyu and GDC, as Kyu had left earlier in the day (I later learned) for his own wedding. Since everyone in the room was interested in mobile MMOs, I couldn't let them just leave without meeting any of them and hearing their perspectives. So, with the blessing of the Conference Associates and the sound technicians in the room, I turned to the session into an impromptu roundtable. It ended up going very well. Read the summary on Gamasutra by Eric-Jon Waugh.

GDC: Experimental Gameplay Sessions Presents Games from the Boston Game Jam

Dan Roy — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 23:37:45 -0600

Among the many games presented this year at the Experimental Gameplay Sessions at GDC were the games we created at the Boston Game Jam at MIT back in January. Darius Kazemi ably summarized our creations for an audience of several hundred.

My GDC Presentation: Labyrinth: Keeping the Play in Learning Games

Dan Roy — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 23:28:55 -0600

Here's a link to a talk I gave last Monday at the Serious Games Summit at GDC on the learning game I'm designing at MIT with Maryland Public Television and Fablevision. The talk was very well received by a packed room. We started the talk by describing the story, presentation, and gameplay, and ended it by letting the audience play a prototype level from the game as a group.

GDC: KidConfidence Interviews Me on Learning Games

Dan Roy — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 23:08:06 -0600

Here's a short write-up and podcast of me being interviewed at GDC about learning games.

The Education Arcade and The Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Games Innovation Lab

Dan Roy — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 22:55:37 -0700

Regarding my employment...

Throughout my time at MIT as a master student, I've worked with The Education Arcade. The project we've worked on for the last year (code-named Labyrinth) will help middle school students improve their math and literacy skills. It's a multiplayer, story-based puzzle game with a beautiful aesthetic. It's the first game coming out of The Education Arcade that will actually see commercial release and widespread adoption. As I near graduation (June 2007), my role in this project is coming to an end. MIT's involvement is also winding down, as we deliver the last of the design documents to Boston-based developer Fablevision.

My next project will be to spend the summer with The Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Games Innovation Lab here on campus. Several teams of 7 Singaporean and MIT students will develop one small game each over 12 weeks, and it will be my job to help them navigate some of the technical and design hurdles. To prepare, we're testing the development cycle this spring with MIT undergrads. Some of my past work has suddenly become highly relevant, including organizing student game development projects with the Hi-Score Game Development Club I co-founded at UMass Amherst. Also, my experience with the Boston Game Jam and prototyping designs for The Education Arcade have helped me better appreciate the creative potential as well as inherent limitations of short, agile game development cycles.

For more information about The Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Games Innovation Lab (GAMBIT for short), read the interview with Henry Jenkins, William Uricchio, and Philip Tan over at Wired.