Random Aside! How to not get ripped off for your old games.

Alright then, time for a non design related post I think. Today I'm going to ramble on about an alternative method of selling your old video games. Enter Glyde.com , a ridiculously simple to use, yet elegantly designed website that makes getting rid of your old games easier even than driving down to Gamestop (where you'll likely be paid half if not less of what you will make if you sell using Glyde). Essentially, you make an account with their site, once you've done that, you begin adding games to your "Collection" by telling the site which games you have. From there you can post games that are in your collection for sale with just a mouse click. What I loved about Glyde was that each game is treated differently, I had a fair amount of uncommon RPG's in my PS2 collection, some selling for as high as 40-50 dollars, despite being years old. Take the same game to Gamestop and you will be offered maybe 5$ for your game and they'll turn around and sell it for 10$. It should be noted that you can actually make a fair amount of money this way, go to your local gamestop and troll through their old used games bin, if you have a fair knowledge of which games are and are not uncommon you can walk out of there with 4 games and not spend more than 25$, then turn them around on Glyde separately for as much as you paid for all 4.

But I ramble. The real beauty of the Glyde system lies not in its well designed and managed web page, but in how they handle their mailing. Once your game sells on Glyde you are notified via email, then, within a few days a large envelope will arrive at your door. Inside of that envelope is another large envelope all ready to be mailed out, you simply drop the game in, seal the envelope up, and pop it in your mail box. You don't have to address anything or even lick a stamp, the mail goes out the next day, and if the person who receives the game does not report that the game is unplayable or horribly scratched, the money is deposited into your Glyde account, from where it can be deposited into a bank account or turned into a check that they will mail to the address of your choice.

Essentially its a simple to use system that lets you sell your video games from the comfort of your home with minimal effort. And you'll be making more money than you would selling the game via conventional methods. Anyway folks, thanks for reading!

A word on Freemium

It's been a while since I last posted, so let's talk about Freemium today, the freemium marketing/distribution method as it pertains to the video game market that is. A prime example of a Freemium game would be the popular "League Of Legends", the base product is completely free, with either a premium membership available for purchase, or simply items, exp boosters, you name it they can probably find a way to sell it in game. 

Honestly, upon first hearing this my first instinct was to cringe, I don't especially like the idea of being nickled and dimed while I am gaming, but the truth of the matter is that in most cases, the companies that use these marketing methods are just as interested in having you as a return customer as any other gaming company. My experience with League of Legends was extremely positive in terms of the free experience, yes you can spend a few dolalrs and unlock the newer heroes, but the people who choose not to are still able to play those characters through either the weekly assortment of random heroes that all players are able to choose from (ensuring that everyone gets to play the entire roster eventually), or by earning points by completing matches and unlocking the hero that way.

This sucker will run you 25$USD

World of Warcraft recently removed the time period on their free trial offer, essentially making World Of Warcraft a Freemium game now considering that you can pay for in game content using real money through the blizzard store (though nothing that affects the actual game-play, as Blizzard has stated that they do not want players who spend extra money to have a leg up on players who simply pay their monthly subscription)

Another purchasable mount for World Of Warcraft

And of course I'm sure many of us are aware that Valve recently switched Team Fortress 2 to the freemium model, apparently a brilliant marketing move as I haven't seen the servers as full as they are right now in months.

All said, I'm a fan of properly implemented Freemium, whether simply offering more items or powers to players at a fee, or offering a portion of your game for free and gating the rest with a fee, the whole model puts the power in the players hands to decide how big a bite they want to take of the game without having to invest completely right away. Decide you hate the game 10 minutes in? Great, good thing you didn't spend 40-60 dollars at the store for it and are either stuck with it or in the awkward position of driving back and needing to return it. 

There are some dangers inherent in the system that I will talk about in another post, but I think that what's important to take away from this is that the Freemium model itself is not inherently bad, but it has however been abused by several rather large companies in the past and I feel as though that has sort of given it a bad rap.  Anyway folks, that's it for tonight!

A thought or two concerning user interfaces

Well then, it's that time again where I rant a little bit to myself while sitting at the PC and hope that some of my thoughts make it coherently into this post.  I've been thinking a bit lately about User Interfaces, specifically user interfaces in video games. Honestly, they bother me. At least usually they do. What I am referring to as a user interface in this case is data that is displayed on the screen during game-play that is  unmarried from the game-play itself. Examples of this would consist of, say, an ammo counter that is displayed in some static location, players health levels are often  also in this category. And while I do understand the importance of a static health bar in some genres, fighting games, for example certainly rely on them as a primary mechanic, I can't help but wonder why more of these historically static UI elements aren't being phased out more? You actually see this a good deal in some of the newer shooters, in Gears of war you have no continuous health measurement, your health level is only ever displayed right after you take damage, though the giant emblem that they superimpose over the center of the screen is ever so annoying. But other games have done the same with simple screen glow, and in the case of nonregenerating health, even with player speed reduction and even simulated limping when at lower health levels, not only does this add realism to the game but it removes an unnecessary UI element! hooray, more screen real estate for the actual game!

Redundant ammo counter is redundant.

 Ammo counters are being married with the guns they belong to more and more as well, I am all for this, and was about to add this halo 1 screen as a good example before I realized that there is a second ammo counter on the top left....well anyway they almost got it right, and hey the other one also tells them how many grenades they have.

In any case folks, all that I am really saying is that I think there are a lot of ways available to developers to display information to the player that can HELP immerse the player with the game, as opposed to simply printing out boring alphanumeric data that is not a part of the game world itself.

More Random Asides

Another question for other Dungeons and Dragons players out there. What do you guys use for your battlegrid? I suppose this could apply to any other type of miniatures game as well. My group and I have been through innumerate different ways, large sheaves of paper with hand drawn grids, but those took too long, the official tiles are pretty expensive, and we like big BIG maps, I think we had a whiteboard at one point but grid that was even worse than the papers. What have you guys found that works? I've heard there are some whiteboard grids out there custom tailored to us, though I've yet to see them.

Non Invasive Mechanics 2 - Silhouettes

Let's talk about silhouettes today shall we? But first, lets define it for our purposes! When I speak about a silhouette in this post, I will be referring to the physical outlines of a character, regardless of how they're textured. Valve has been doing a lot of pioneering in this field, so a number of you are likely already familiar with this aspect of design and know why it is such an important aspect of game design.
For the most part I will be talking about player character silhouettes, but just note that much of what applies to them applies to npcs and inanimate objects in games as well. So why are silhouettes so important? The simple answer is "Ease of Recognition", it lets you identify what you're looking at quickly, at greater distance than recognition via fine details (facial features, designs on the players model, etc.) and as a result, allows you to react accordingly more quickly. A good implementation of silhouette differentiation between character models also has the effect lowering breaks in a games continuity, allowing players to tell the difference between other players/npc's at a glance as opposed to needing to concentrate continually on fine details to tell who is who.


How about we just look at some examples? Below I'll look at 3 games and offer my 2 cents into their implementation of good silhouetting.


First of all, let's look at a game that doesn't really utilize silhouetting to the fullest. Actually, let's talk about an entire Genre, and that is the "World War II Shooter", realistic shooters almost as a whole tend to have problems with silhouetting simply by virtue of BEING realistic. Soldiers tend to look alike, they wear much the same gear and colors as one another, and its hard to differentiate. Though there is a spectrum to be considered even within this genre, so lets compare two games within this genre.

Pictured above, Soldier A, Soldier B, And Soldier C

Pictured on the right is a screenshot which I am praying is from "Brothers in arms: Earned in blood" (One of my favorite WWII shooters by the way, it's amazing, go download it on steam now). And the simple fact that I have to think twice about which game this might be says something about the ease of recognition of their character models. As you can see from the picture it is very difficult to tell one soldier apart from another.  And at greater distances, it not only becomes difficult to tell your allies apart from our allies, but your enemies from your allies. A Nazi looks just about the same as an american soldier once they're far enough away that you can no longer tell the difference between the drab brown of the allied forces clothing and the grey of the Nazi soldiers.

Different hats for everyone!

So let's look at a game that does a little better  job at it. Bad Company! It's necessary to differentiate the single player and multiplayer in this game, as while the single player makes displays a fairly good use of silhouetting (All of your squad mates have distinguishing features that allow you to tell them apart, even at distances), the multiplayer leaves you to decide which type of enemy you're looking at by the gun he is likely already shooting you with by the time you've figured out that its an Assault class with an assault rifle and not a spec ops with an SMG.  I think the decision that companies have to make is how realistic they want their game to be. And I don't really think that there is a correct answer. The more realistic the game, the more likely it is that half of your characters are going to look nearly identical. And people who like realistic games are probably going to appreciate that. Or you could go the other direction, make the medics slighter of build, bulk up your assault classes a little bit. They're going to stand out more, and that is going to be a good thing in some peoples eyes and a bad thing in others, so it really just depends on how you're going to market the game I suppose.

All shapes and sizes!

Anyway, lets talk about another game for a little bit, this one has some very good implementation, but also some bad implementation that sort of goes away as you level up. I'll explain. The first thing I will say is that the differences between the races is excellent, even when armored it is very easy to tell who is playing for which team so to speak. Even the two most similar races, Blood and Night elves, are easily told apart.  However, it is much more difficult to tell the games classes apart. This is due to the large impact that different pieces of gear will have on your player silhouette, and with multiple classes being able to equip the same gear, you of course run into instances of a say, a Priest and a Mage wearing the same dress to a party. This is alleviated a little bit once a player reaches the end game, as there exist specials suits of armor for each class referred to as "Tier Sets", but until you've attained the best gear in the game, your class will likely be difficult to tell. Admittedly blizzard has given some of the classes an ability with a persistent visual effect that denotes not only their class clearly, but even their specialization as well. Examples of this would be the Death Knight's bone shield ability, Shamans elemental shields, etc. This is a trend I wholeheartedly encourage and hope to see more classes being given their own neat persistent graphical effects.

I will end with a game that excellently implements silhouetting, and it should surprise nobody that said game was developed by Valve.  Just a glance at the picture shows how different each characters model is from the other, nobody ever mistakes Francis for Zoey, or Bill for Louis at a glance, which is a damn good thing because the window of opportunity between wondering if you need to shoot something and a terrible death is usually pretty short. The enemies also enjoy unique silhouettes, the common infected all share roughly the same shape and size, as they should, they are legion. But the special infected each stand out very starkly from the sea of drones, and, importantly, from one another, which is great because each special infected represents a different threat than the others, and requires a different response.


That's about all for today, sorry this post turned out so long, haha

Another random aside.

Going to sit down after work and put out another game design post, but for right now I'm just going to jot down a realization I had a little while ago about the level of computer education I received throughout my primary education. The realization being that I  had essentially taken the same damn class every year from 3rd grade until my freshman year in Highschool. They would sit you down, cover your hands, and have you type sentences, and measure your accuracy and Word Per Minute. Does this mean I can mark down 8 years or so of secretarial training on my resume? I think our Highschool offered some web design classes but they were cut by the time I became a Sophomore. How about you guys, similar experiences? Or did your schools have a more robust computer education program?

Non Invasive Mechanics

Hey there folks, this will be the first of a few posts talking about non invasive game mechanics. Now I'm certain that I'm  using the term horribly wrong, but when I refer to non invasive game mechanics, what I mean is something that adds to the game, but is something that the player often has little control over or even awareness of.

So lets talk about audio

And when I say audio I don't mean the games soundtrack, that deserves a post unto itself. I mean the games sound direction. Happily, I've seen a trend in recent years that seems to denote that the gaming community at large is beginning to acknowledge excellent sound direction, with games like Dead Space especially being recognized for excellence in this sector. So what denotes good sound design? Well that's something that isn't easily pinned down. In a game with good sound direction, there is no dissonance between what you are hearing, and what you are seeing, or perceiving as the source of any sound. A robust 3d positional sound system is key to this in my opinion. Well implemented this, this system lets you differentiate between things like, different bullet impact points. This by itself raises your awareness of your surroundings at that time from "Hey someone is shooting at me" to "Christ that bullet hit just to the right of my head!", a whole different level of immersion. 

Ambient sound too, I believe is very very important for creating a believable, cohesive environment. An environment that looks believable and is done well is a work of art, add to that a menagerie of audible minutia specifically designed to exist within THAT specific environment, then I believe, it becomes a great deal more. Without the constant croaks, beeps, clinks, clangs, whistles, rustling leaves, blowing wind, we would be left to  traverse muted landscapes, things that, seem alive but do not breathe! Anyway folks, that's it for tonight, just a reminder that sometimes it's the little things that hold all the big things together.