Grumpy Gamer

What is an Adventure Game?

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 12:03:47 -0800

What makes an Adventure Game an Adventure Game?

Is Limbo an Adventure Game or just a puzzle game? Some people called L.A. Noir an Adventure Game but it lacks some of the basic components of an Adventure Game. Or does it?

Why do we call them Adventure Games? If you faithfully made Monkey Island into a movie, I doubt it would be called an Adventure Movie or even an Action/Adventure Movie.

I guess we call Adventure Games Adventure Games because the first one was call Adventure. I see no other reason they are called Adventure Games.

Semantics aside, what makes an Adventure Game an Adventure Game?

Inventory? Pointing? Clicking? Story? Low Sales?

Certainly not Adventuring.

First Concept Art

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:20:19 -0800

Here are a couple of fine pieces of concept art from the game I'm making with the amazing folks at Double Fine. I'm so excited. This is an idea that has been in my head for a long long long time. It predates Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island. It's a game that needed to be made.

These are two of the playable characters. That's all I can say right now, but more will follow later.

Meeting Steve Jobs

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 11:45:22 -0700

Several years ago I had the great pleasure and privilege of meeting Steve Jobs.

I had a meeting at Pixar and I heard that Steve Jobs might be there. First thing I did was ask a good friend of mine that knew Steve Jobs what he was like and was there any advice she could give me.

She said that Steve Jobs is an incredibly intelligent and passionate person and the one piece of advice she had for me was: don't argue with Steve Jobs and everything will go fine. Argue with Steve Jobs? He's probably one of the smartest people in the whole world and someone I have unequalled respect for, why would I ever argue with him?

I arrived at the meeting and went into the conference room. John Lasseter was there (who I casually knew from when Pixar was part of Lucasfilm) and we chit-chatted.

A few minutes later Steve Jobs came in. He sat right across the table from me and the first words out of his mouth where: "I don't believe you can tell stories in games."

Now...

Steve Jobs could have told me the sky was green, he could have told me that dogs gave birth to cats, he could have said just about anything and I would have nodded thoughtfully and probably been totally convinced, but he had to say the one thing in all of creation that I could not let go.

I spent the next hour arguing with Steve Jobs.

My advice to God: Don't argue with Steve Jobs.

Goodbye Mr. Jobs, you really did change the world and we will miss you.

The Vertical Slice

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 11:40:44 -0700

The vertical slice is one of the dumbest things the game industry has ever come up with. I threw this together to show how dumb it is. Not sure why I was thinking about it today, but I was. The publisher I'm working with now doesn't want a vertical slice, some don't, but there are quite a few that do.

It's just a dumb way to build a game and it results in wasted time and money and doesn't produce the best game possible.

A publisher handing a developer a big chunk of money to make a game should mean a carefully planned preproduction, and if it's risky from a game play or tech stand point, absolutely build a prototype (not just for them, but for you as well), but doing a vertical slice is just kowtowing to the uncreative.

We work in a creative industry, I expect the 'execs' to understand that creativity. Given that they are the ones getting stinking rich off of all our hard work, shouldn't we expect that from them?

What if movie studios required vertical slices of movies. It just doesn't work.

Vertical slices might work in a medium where you start at the beginning and grind though in a fairly linear fashion and what comes out is 90% complete. Maybe writing a novel works this way, but making movies and games do not. They are an iterative processes. You build foundations and the build up from there.

Da Vinci didn't paint the Mona Lisa one stip at a time, he slowly built it up from sketch to finished painting. That's the way games should be built.

Netflix Streaming Sucks

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 17:06:32 -0700

Once again, I tweeted something that some people are not understanding, due to no fault of theirs, it's just hard to get complex ideas out in 140 characters, so it warrants a full blog post.

Bottom line: Netflix streaming sucks and here's why.

I have tried this on several devices, so I know it's not the device. I've streamed on my 360, my iPad, my Apple TV and directly on my TV (which has a LAN port and if that doesn't scare the crap of TV networks, nothing will) and I get the same crappy results.

I'll start watching the movie (in HD) and everything is more-or-less OK. The movies are compressed more than I'm used to on iTunes, as I can see artifacts, but it's not so bad that it's a deal breaker.

It should also be noted, that I am extremely picky when it comes to visual quality. I love watching movies and I relish a nice crisp clean picture. I rent a lot of movies on my Apple TV via iTunes and despite it being 720p, they are gorgeous on a big HD TV.

OK, so I start watching the Netflix movie and about 10 or 15 minutes into the movie...bam..I'm watching a crappy YouTube video. Blocky compression, artifacts everywhere and I want to gouge my eyes out. I give it 10 or 15 more minutes and it goes back to HDish quality and 15 or so minutes later, I'm back to crappy quality and out comes the eye-fork.

People keep saying "it's your internet connection" but i call bullshit on that (but in a nice non-sweary way).

When I rent a movie on my Apple TV via iTunes, I press the button that says "Yes, I really want to rent this" and a message pops up that says "Your movie will be ready to watch in a few moments" and 30 seconds later I start watching and the quality is absolutely perfect and I watch the entire movie and it never pauses or downgrades.

Why? Because the Apple TV/iTunes buffers enough of the movie locally based on my Internet connection speed to allow me to watch it.

Why doesn't Netflix do this? It's not rocket science here. Will people really get upset when they have to wait 30 seconds before watching their movie? If Netflix is worried about that, then have an option for waiting and let the antsy-pants people start watching immediately. Keep buffering while it sits on some "Press Play to Watch" screen for the people that care about quality.

Now, I've brought this up with some of my friends, and inevitably they say "It doesn't do that for me", then I describe the problem in more detail and they say "Oh that, yeah, I do see that but it doesn't bother me". Maybe this doesn't happen to other people or maybe it's just that other people's definition of quality isn't as stringent as mine.

So why does Netflix streaming do this? I have a couple of theories that don't involve Netflix having crappy programmers.

One is that the movie studios won't let them buffer more than X seconds. Part of me thinks this can't be true, but then another part of me thinks that movie studios really are that stupid (I read a great quote a while back that said "If big media companies want to survive, they should fire everyone over thirty).

The other theory is that the internet bandwidth issues are not on my end, but on Netflix's end. They are the ones that can't handle the output, so there is no way for them to know how much to pre-buffer. I don't think this is true, because it doesn't matter when I watch, I consistently see this behavior. Also, when the quality degrades, I press pause for a while to see if that will clear it up and it never does, so I suspect there isn't much (if any) pre-buffering going on.

Of course, the end result of all this is that I don't watch movies on Netflix, which is too bad because there is a lot of stuff I'd love to watch without paying $3.99 to rent it on iTunes. But as it stands now, the $3.99 is worth the quality. I just wish Netflix tried harder and actually cared about quality, or would at least come clean with why this is happening.

I bet iTunes looks so good because Steve Jobs cares about quality and probably uses iTunes and if he saw a badly compressed movie on iTunes he's just go punch someone. I wish I could punch someone at Netflix.

*Threat of violence against someone at Netflix was used solely as a literary device not as an actual threat.

April Fools' Day #7

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 10:26:11 -0700

Wow, it's hard to believe this is the 7th year of Grumpy Gamer being 100% April Fools' Day free. It's rare that I've ever done anything for seven strait years, so that should tell you how much I hate April Fools' Day.

I'd also like to add @grumpygamer to the list of things that are 100% April Fools' Days free.

That said, if LucasArts ever allows me to make another Monkey Island, I'm totally announcing it on April 1st, that way you'll know it's not a joke.

The Making of Maniac Mansion

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 13:37:27 -0800

The fine folks at Game Forum Germany have been trying to get me to speak there for the past three years, but something has always come up and prevented me from attending, but this year I vowed to go. This year was going to be different.

I've only been to Germany once before and most of that three days was spent at a hotel attached to the Munich airport doing PR for Total Annihilation. Our hosts did take us into town for dinner one night where we ate at an Italian restaurant. I feel a proper trip to Germany is due and I expect to see lederhosen and lots of them.

I was told I could talk about anything I wanted, which always presents itself as a dilemma. The easy thing to talk about is Monkey Island. Everyone loves to hear about Monkey Island. The next easiest thing would be to talk about DeathSpank since it's shiny and new and I get a lot of email asking me about the game, but in the end I decided to give a talk about the making of Maniac Mansion.

Maniac Mansion is a game that is close to 25 years old and started the whole point-and-click adventure genera in addition to coining the term 'cut-scene' used throughout the civilized world. Maniac Mansion is a game filed with dead ends, backwards puzzles and no-win situations. Maniac Mansion is a flawed game, but that's what makes it so interesting. Gary and I had no idea what we were doing when we started making Maniac Mansion; we didn't even know it was going to be an adventure game.

Despite all it's problems, it's a game that is loved by countless gamers and it holds a very special place in my heart. All the lessons learned from making Maniac Mansion can be seen in the design for Monkey Island. Without one, there would not be the other.

During my research for the talk, I came across an amazing amount of fan art for Maniac Mansion including the wonderful Lego Minifigs seen above.

I'm incredibly excited to be giving this talk and finally seeing Germany and getting a window seat on the way there and back. I'm going to keep the window shade open the whole fight. If I can't sleep on a plane, no one else is going to either.

Monkey Island 2 Bug Report

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:08:51 -0800

While cleaning out my bookcase a few weeks ago, I ran across a large and mysterious black three ring binder that contained a brittle and water stained printout of the entire Monkey Island 2 bug report. I have no idea why I had it or why I kept it.

Granted, it's not quite as impressive as Steve Purcell's Monkey Island concept art, but hey...quit your bitching.

Several hundred pages later...

DeathSpank Coming to the [REDACTED]!!

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 14:36:11 -0700

DeathSpank is finally coming to the [REDACTED] platform in Oct and [REDACTED] later in the year and you can pre-order them on Steam.

Now, I need to get back to putting the final touches on the pitch document for my new game: The [REDACTED].

Corporate Censorship Kills Creative Innovation

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 10:23:58 -0700

I recently twittered "Corporate censorship kills creative innovation because some great ideas aren't seen as great until much later" but some people were confused, which isn't surprising given that I could have fully explained what I meant if I'd just used all 140 characters.

So to clarify, I'll do a full post but due to how I have MySQL set up, I'll need to keep to under two billion characters. Hopefully that will be enough this time.

When I was talking about "Corporate Censorship", I wasn't talking about the relationship between a game developer and a publisher. That's a unique relationship because one party (the publisher/employer) is paying the other party (the developer/employee) and I do think if you're funding something, you do have the right to exert some control over what is being made. You are paying for it after all. In a good and healthy publisher/developer relationship both parties respect what the other brings to the venture and they let the other do what they do best with minmal interference, but that's not what I was talking about.

Although my current frustration in this (soon to be explained) matter is directed at Apple, it can also be attributed to Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, Comcast, AT&T or just about any other company that maintains some level of blanket creative control over a medium, whether it be the iPhone, the XBox, the PS3, a cable box or a printing press.

I've been a huge supporter and cheerleader of Apple over the years. While I did not grow-up programming the Apple II (C64 rules!), I have owned a Mac non-stop since 1985 and have always had a huge amount of respect for the company and their creative and technical innovations.

But all that changed for me in 2007 with the introduction of the iPhone. I love my iPhone. I bought one day-one and continue to own one and an iPad. They are truly amazing devices, and in my opinion, there are none better.

But Apple has maintained an almost North Koreanish dictatorial control over the devices, becoming the arbitrator over what is good and bad, what is allowed and not allowed.

They don't have this control over the Mac because it is a real computer and an open device, but they can do this with the iPhone because we (as consumers) were convinced by the cell phone carriers that they needed this control to protect their networks (in the same way they wouldn't let us own our own telephones in the 70s) and Apple was happy to jump on that ship because they could finally control everything that went on the device and we bought it into it.

Apple apologists say that Apple needs this control to maintain the "specialness" of the device. I say that's a load of crap. Anyone that uses a Mac will tell you that much of the software (completely out of Apple's control) is beautiful and highly functional, unlike the sea of garbage that finds its way onto Windows. Apple set a high aesthetic standard and challenges people to follow it and it's worked great. No one tells me what I can or can not buy and use on my Mac, yet it's all lovely and special.

Apple apologists will also say that Apple needs this control to protect me from malicious software. Once again, I call bullshit. I'm an adult. My Mac doesn't need someone to watch over my shoulder and make sure no one takes advantage of me, and I can guarantee you that I have more personal information on my Mac (i.e. the Secret of Monkey Island) than I do my iPhone and I'm pretty sure that's true for almost anyone.

Apple apologists criticize anyone that claims the iPhone or the iPad is a device for consumption and not creation. They will point to wonderful art or music that was made on the device as proof, but I maintain that these wonderful things were created in spite of the device, not because of it.

Back when I was working with Steve Purcell on Monkey Island, he would sit in team meetings and create to most incredible jaw dropping pictures on an Etch-A-Sketch, but that doesn't mean it was suddenly a serious tool for the creation of art.

The truly sad part of what keeps the iPad from being a serious tool for creation and not just a toy for consumption is Apple's pathological control over the device. Why can't there be a common Documents folder that any application can save documents to? Why must all applications be locked into a sandbox, unable to communicate with each other in unthought of and creative ways without using some kludgy URL scheme?

To protect us Apple will say. Bullshit I say.

Why can't Pages load and save files to Dropbox like I can on my Mac? Why must I use iTunes to transfer documents from the iPad to my computer? Why doesn't it just mount this Documents folder like any other drive when I plug it in?

Artists I know who try and use the iPad to create art love it's portability, but hate transferring images that are often automatically compressed and resized because that's what Apple thought we (the stupid consumers) need it to do. Yes, you can get around all this my jumping though hoops and tricking the device, but why should we be subjected to that.

I'm an adult.

Which brings us to the creative argument.

Apple recently relaxed the "rules" for the iPhone's App Store which was cheered by many and criticized by others, but I think it really begs the question: why do they maintain any creative control? They aren't paying me to make the game. It isn't a contract job. It's my game.

Apple famously used Fart Apps as an example of something there was too much of. Who cares? Why should I or anyone else trust Apple to recognize the genius of my Fart App? But that's what we're relying on them to do, but not just for fart apps. Genius isn't aways recognized from the outset. Van Gogh wasn't seen as a genius until after his death and I don't want to trust Apple or any corporation to recognize the genius of a game based on playing it for 5 minutes.

Ideas are often censored not because they are bad, but because they are not understood and mistaken for bad. The damage here is that truly brilliant ideas can take a while before their importance and genius is truly appreciated or that people are ready for them. Ideas can also be upsetting and disruptive to the status quo, the very institutions that have the power to censor.

Apple banned a photography App because it used the physical volume button on the side of the phone to snap the picture. Anyone who's tried to use the iPhone camera will attest to the awkwardness of trying to press the virtual button on the screen. Using one of the volume buttons to snap the picture was pure genius, but Apple banned the App, saying that it was to avoid consumer confusion.

Really? But I'm an adult.

What finally prompted my twitter post was reading the news that Adidas is pulling out of the iAds program:

Adidas supposedly pulled its $10+ million ad campaign from the iAd program because Apple CEO Steve Jobs was being too much of a control freak. According to one industry exec, Adidas decided to cancel its iAds after Apple rejected its creative concept for the third time.

I don't really care one way or another about iAds, Adidas or ads in general, but it's the creative control that corporations are exerting more and more over creators and user because technology allows them to. It's wrong and it's unhealthy.

Most of this post is about Apple, but the same thing can be said of Microsoft and how they control what gets onto XBLA or Sony and PSN or Nintendo or Comcast and new an innovative cable boxes. It can be said of just about any large corporation that finds itself in a positon to be a censor of what you get to see, all the while claiming that it's for your own good.

If Gutenberg's press could have be shackled with DRM and technology to prevent anything unauthorized from being printed, you know it would have been. And then where would be be today?

I don't need corporations to protect me and limit what I can or can not create, express or enjoy.

I'm an adult.