Tutorials

How the hell do you make a multiplayer tutorial? I have been pondering this for a few weeks now, because I think that it is indicative of the delicate balance required for all the elements of a multiplayer game. I am working on a Team Fortress 2 map, and I'm finding myself continually reworking the level, knowing that the spacial layout is key. But I was also playing the game a bit and I really took notice of how different the learning curve is between single- and multi-player.

In a solo linear game, even in a nonlinear game, you can introduce players to each concept, slowly ramping up the difficulty and complexity of the scenarios/levels/missions. In a multiplayer game you are introducing a player to the game, explaining the basic concepts and then throwing them out to the wolves. Play Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty 4, or, heaven help you, the venerable Starcraft, and the multiplayer games will hand your ass to you several times over before you give up in frustration or finally catch on to a trick somewhere and then slowly climb the tree of experience.

Multiplayer has never been for the weak of heart, but often hardcore games do try and ease you into the challenge over time through different methods.

Firstly, many games have a singleplayer mode. Starcraft you can train by playing through the campaign. I faced as tough a time at the end of Brood War that I faced online. Then again I never surmounted either Brood War or multiplayer SC; instead I conceded defeat against such brutal opposition. With Call of Duty there is also singleplayer, and many major games place just as much importance on the woven yarn as the multiplayer arenas.

Other games have excellent Bot modes. Unreal Tournament and its sequels have always been favorites of mine because they have excellent bots that you can play through the game as if you were playing an online match, but instead you play against whatever skill level you wish.

And finally, other games simply have tutorials, videos, or text and images to tell you what you should do when you're thrown out onto the field of battle. But these are the least helpful, frankly. Team Fortress 2 works with such simple tutorials because every element of the game is so plainly presented in the game. When you are a pyro, you immediately know you're a frontline soldier, intended to torch the enemy, and that's all you really need to do. You can see a giant glowing enemy signal, go to it. Play the doctor and you know right away what to do because as soon as you enter the game someone is yelling for a doctor and an arrow is pointing toward them.

The more complicated the game, the more complex the introduction, the more effort is put into singleplayer. Indeed, as I ponder, I am realizing that a game like Counter-Strike can throw you right in, because there is a simple goal and a simple mechanic to CS, it is the balance, the delicate interplay of all the little pieces, that make CS such a joy to master. People play CS for the challenge and if someone does not like CS, they will know it right away.

Likewise, when someone does find a mechanic they enjoy, they will stick with it. It just has to get easier. A player has to get better at a game. They have to feel progress. That is the joy of learning a game: the growth of the player.

Therefore, a multiplayer tutorial needs to reveal a game's central mechanic and hint at the strategies untold. A tutorial merely needs to explain the central tenet of the game, and if you cannot do that in a sentence or two and a couple images, then perhaps it's not the tutorial that needs fixing. The player needs a revelation merely by grasping the main game rule. And once they say, "Ahh, that's a clever concept," or, "Yes, I want to experience that," then the game must have the depth waiting on the other side.

So now it's the other side of the column for me, so thanks for reading. Next up: I have absolutely no idea.

Amidst the fallout

I finished Fallout 3 a few days ago and thought it was a pretty solid ending. I will have to go back and play through things a bit differently, or realistically I will move onto another game and never look back, because I don't often return to games that I've actually gone to the trouble to beat. I am curious about the evil path (I always take the good path) so perhaps Fallout 3 will finally be the game to bring me round to a second playthrough.

Scratch that, there is another game I've played multiple times, possibly my favorite: Max Payne. Both the first and its sequel were immense pleasures to play and I reluctantly await round three. I've written previously about the location of MP3 and the attitude of the game, but I wait to see what they end up doing with it.

In other news the awesome Flixel Bros, Adam Atomic and Danny B, have released another awesome little time-waster. Canabalt is a simple procedural, six-tone game in which you're playing a one button, sidescrolling Mirror's Edge. All you do is jump obstacles and leap from building to building, crashing through windows as you gain speed, allowing you to leap the greater distances as the buildings grow farther apart. Fun for a short time or a bit more than that, I highly recommend the minute it takes to click on the link and get hooked.

Speaking of Mirror's Edge, I finally was tipped off by my girlfriend to a coupon that saved me half the cost of the ME map pack, so I grabbed the new time-trial maps the pack has to offer. They are slick levels, ditching the cities for giant floating boxes that feel like they should be designed by VW and Apple's lovechild. The levels are fun and challenging, just what I like, though I need to give them some more time to truly appreciate the $5 I added to EA's pockets. DICE did well, and I think that you should give Mirror's Edge a chance if you've never done so. [Factoid: I applied to intern at DICE, but this was when I had absolutely nothing on my resume that would make an international developer such as DICE recognize me as anything but ordinary. I still might feel that way, but my resume grows steadily, nonetheless.]

next week on []Musings: I discuss singleplayer vs. multiplayer tutorials.

Pictures like this make my day: http://www.fred.net/slowup/xmasword.jpg

an urge to play videogames

microblog: It doesn't always happen, but right now I've the strongest urge to play some videogames. I am guessing that I've excess energy that can only be taken by the totally absorbing experience of playing something like Fallout 3 or perhaps the new Batman demo?

Unfortunately I'm not playing for a bit yet, since I've got visitor obligations and who can deny going out to breakfast on a Sunday morning?

Happy! Beautiful mother, beautiful father, happy!

It is a happy accident that I met my girlfriend three years ago. It's a happy accident that I have continued to email and keep in contact with one of my old high school teachers who, it turned out, had a husband with lots of amazing connections and got me my current job. It's a happy accident that I don't really remember what incited me to open up blogger to write this evening.

But I'm continually in amazement over the simplicity of this world. The fact that we create these beautiful tapestries that we call lives, we create them out of the simplest events. Going to dinner with someone, reading a book, playing a video game, traveling into the wilderness to bond with friends and get attacked by mosquitoes. Eating, drinking, walking, talking, playing. Am I playing games to escape all of these beautiful things? No, I guess I am playing for my desire to extend my life beyond its normal bounds.

Recently I have been reading the Harry Potter books and I finally did it for two reasons. A) I finally noticed Ginny in the latest movie and thought, hey, she's pretty cute. I wonder what she's like in the novels. And B) I understood that there really was a depth to the world that Rowling had created. My Tolkien elitism settled down and I've been able to enjoy a fascinating world that expands my imagination. The imagination is so powerful and it holds the special place in my heart that recognizes my dreams and thoughts of unreal things can matter just as much to the internal tapestry of my life as any tangible reality.

So, despite Harry Potter not being real, that addition to my mind of a fantastical school of wizardry extends my universe a little more. He is, at times, almost as important as the hike I took a couple weeks back. Or as prominent as the unfortunate homeless I pass on my way to work. Or as captivating as the movement out of the corner of my eye late at night in my apartment that gets my adrenaline pumping? Isn't that amazing? I have read Rowling's words, and now her real imagination is part of my own intangible existence.

annoying invention of the day

If you cannot afford to put a regular soap dispenser in your home or office, why not get one that is exceedingly wasteful and ineffective? That's right. When you grab the following dispenser: http://www.newtondistributing.com/panel/fotoprod/BRA%206501.gif
You will find that it is difficult for the soap to come out, and when it does, it will just drip slowly. Grab it now so that you can detest using it and wish people never came up with it.

Blogging!

Here I am sitting at work, not working, because it's after work and I'm only here because my pal is getting to the nearby airport 4 hours from now. That's a long time. However, there's no sense in me driving home, because that takes approximately an hour and a half. So I would be spending all my gas to get home and then leave again shortly thereafter. So why not blog a little?

Hello! I'm Randy O. I work at Digital Chocolate as of two days ago. I spend my time now making sweet art for stuff I can't tell you about. I like signing NDAs. It's about the closest I will ever get to being a secret agent. In fact, it's as close as I can get because it makes me a secret agent because I keep secrets as an agent of this company. I'm ignoring the somewhat inappropriate usage of "agent" and so can you. This is cooler than my normal life because I don't have to keep anything secret. Though I do love mystery.

And there are still a few people here at 7pm. That was definitely not how it was at my last job. Then again, surprisingly, people show up here even later than people at the previous place. How do they do it? Okay, I know the answer to that: they have sleep schedules just as screwy as mine. I'm changing my schedule because I've got no other choice. 2 hour train ride to work at 7am, ya got no choice but to not sleep at 3am every morning.

This change of pace in life, it really gets to ya. I'm tired right now, but, well, I could take a nap. Perhaps I shall. Oh, to be napping at my workplace (after work hours!) after three days here. I am amazing.

[Oh, yah, so this all means I have a job. Go me!]