The topic includes discussions of the tools, techniques and function of creating a flowchart of the modes and screens in a video game, as well as wireframes mocking up the functionality of individual screens.

Enjoy – RandyAngle-UIDesign.pdf

Cheers,
Randy

This one covers the streetwise skills, gangs, guilds and secret societies of rogues and how player characters and game masters can interact with them during adventures.

You can download the PDF.

On September 17, 2012 I was invited to speak at the Game Design Conference in San Francisco. It was a terrific event an certainly gave me a chance to catch up with old and new friends and learn a few things.

I was on a panel with some of the best designers in our industry “How Do You Create Your Next Game?” and also spoke about “RPG Meta-Game” – “From table-tops to computer games and from action to social, how the mechanics of RPGs can be used in all games to encourage a deeper and more engaging player experience.”

I’ve put my slides up for all to see RPGMeta-Game.zip

Cheers,
Randy

Apple Logo 1976 to 1998

I have to say that having just read the verdict in the Apple vs Samsung trial I am more than a little disappointed.

MSN Money: Apple wins $1 billion award in patent case

VentureBeat: Apple vs Samsung Verdict

The summary judgement is pretty interesting, with Samsung owing over $1B to Apple for damages. With an almost $12 stock price increase after the announcement Apple’s market cap also increases by over $1B. Does that mean I should blame Investors? Nope, but maybe I’m a bit envious that I can’t afford to be well invested in a stock that monopolizes its market and is protected by the legal system.

I’m not particularly blaming the jurors – who I’m sure followed the 100 pages of instructions and answered the 700 questions in their summary as accurately as they could in less than 3 days.

I could be disappointed that instead of a proper trial the parties were forced to race along against a 25-hour limit clock, like a chess game, forcing them to skip cross-examination and prioritize evidence in a way that no other trial has ever been done before.

Bloomberg: Apple, Samsung Get 25 Hours to Argue Their Case   [video]

I could be disappointed in the way evidence was not allowed, or prior art was ignored.

I could be disappointed by the fact that the CEOs were not able to look past their differences and settle at the last minute as instructed.

I know that it scares me and my wife that a corporation is allowed to use patents to block competition and effectively monopolize a market, limiting distribution of Samsung’s products in many markets. Where is the FTC to limit Apple and force fair trade and competition? Why attack Microsoft in the 1990′s and yet allow Apple to bully developers, book publishers, musicians, the movie industry and now the competition.

Wikipedia: United States vs Microsoft

You will notice that many of the complaints raised by other software companies against Microsoft are pretty similar to the way that Apple is being anti-competitive now.

People laughed at Samsung when the iPhone vs S1 document leaked.

Scribd: Samsung Relative Evaluation Report on S1 & iPhone

Just to be sure, this is the kind of competitive analysis report that any product manager is required to do to justify the work they oversee. You must analyze your competition and make judgements and comparisons. It doesn’t mean you are cloning your competition. It is hardly a smoking gun… but if it is to be judged legally as a smoking gun then it calls into question the very essence of product development and how companies make software… including Apple themselves.

For all the things that I could blame I’m very disappointed that the patent system allows this kind of abuse and has not been revamped to keep up with the rapid progress of technology. The patent system that has become useless and now is demonstrating that it is hurting more than it is helping.

CNet News: Fixing a broken patent system

SFgate: Google lawyer – Why the patent system is broken

There are folks who believe that the Patent System isn’t broken – referencing all the good it has done throughout history.

Forbes: No the Patent System is Not Broken

I don’t think people are saying the Patent System WAS bad… just that it has become a way to monopolize a market and deter competition.

Insert Patent Rant

My views on patents probably come from my experiences as a young engineer making soil and moisture instruments with computers in them – before the term “embedded systems” was even coined. I had already made software that was Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) before that term was coined, and few people know that I left my college studies to join the computer industry and become part of the innovation (Does that put me in the company of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg… maybe). I’d learned everything I needed to help invent the computer industry and didn’t need to run Cobal programs on punch cards again just to get a grade when I could program every kind of computer available at the time in either Microsoft Basic or the actual machine language of the computer. My boss at the time, Bill Mancuso, paid to have me continue classes in a variety of topics and from time to time I’d find myself back in a software engineering course with the instructor asking me “Why are you in this class? You should be teaching it.” Bill also taught me to keep everything I did written in bound composition notebooks (the kind kids keep journals in for school). When I asked why, he explained that we need to know your frame of mind and process you use to reach the conclusions you do and if you happen to invent something really important we have the work all recorded for posterity. I asked if that meant patents… his answer was that from time to time patents are important and necessary, but you should use them only when you actually have improved something to the point of it being truly new, not just built on the stepping stones of those before me. Throughout my career I’ve had the opportunity to patent many of my software and user-interface innovations. Solved problems that many thousands of people before me could not… mostly what I’ve found is that most innovation is simply clever application of principals in other disciplines, and not actually the “world changing” event that would require patenting. Long before others used “soft-keys” on cell-phones I had made them available on those embedded systems I developed. When folks needed a way to compare their instrument results with other peoples results I found a solution that was challenged by academia and soil scientists world wide… until they relized that the equation was really as simple as one of electronics basic building blocks “Wheatstone bridges” and that with simple ratios I had solved a problem with a solution that others ignored. Could I have patented it… sure… but I didn’t need to because it wasn’t actually a new solution… just a clever application of a different solution. BTW – it was only during the writing of this blog post that I found out that Sir Charles Wheatstone actually used his circuit for measuring soil properties… I think he’d be proud of what I used it for.

I share a lot of secrets… my tricks and techniques for years with people I mentor, in classes I teach, or blog posts I write. I hold a few cards close to my chest because I still want to be paid for what I do… but mostly I’m willingly share a lot of what I know.

Unfortunately for Apple the trial also revealed many of their secret plans – I wonder if that means a ripple effect on what they release and ultimately affects their stock price.

WSJ – Apple’s Secrets Revealed at Trial

Are Apple’s patents really innovative?

• Icons arranged in a grid (as humans we naturally align and arrange things into grids).
• Rounded corners (product designers round corners so things don’t break when you drop them… and have for hundreds of not thousands of years).
• Home Button (simple designs are the very essence of good design… reaching one button is awesome… reaching no buttons is amazing).
• Rubber-banding or “bounce scroll” (this effect mimics real life devices like drawers, windows blinds, etc. Oh, and rubber bands).
• Multi-touch scroll gesture (pretty original since multi-touch is pretty new, but there are lots of people using it… did Apple do it first???).
• Green Call button with phone handset (the phone handset was invented by Bell Systems and is used on every cellphone as the “call button” – most feature phones have a green one to take a call and a red one to end a call).
• Shape of buttons/icons (Pretty much copied straight from membrane keyboards, including the highlight to simulate that they are bubbled up – as far as the specs of Apple Icons they are directly copied from the Atari 400 keyboard).
• Scroll bars (they been around for a lot longer than the iPhone… is it worth a new patent just because they fade out???)

Atari 400 Keyboard & iPhone Settings Icon

Consulsions

So some people will say that I’m bashing Apple… and might wonder why. I learned a fair amount by programming my first computer the Apple ][+, and consider Steve Wozniak one my role-models… especially when it comes to software engineering and hacking code in innovative ways. I was President of the Diablo Valley Apple Users Club in the 1980′s and actually had breakfast with Scully (that is a long story, and doesn’t really reflect well on Apple). The iPhone revolutionized the mobile industry and has been my bread and butter for many years now… I’ve made money and made Apple a LOT of money with their 30% of each game item purchased in my free-to-play mobile games. My concern is that Apple has grown up to be everything it said it wouldn’t become when it was the BEST computer company in the whole world. Now Apple thinks it is better than everyone else, it can hide behind and abuse the patent system, and can’t do anything wrong… but what it really can’t do is anything without bullying a whole group of people (competitors, developers, musicians, Hollywood, book publishers…).

1. Is Apple a Bully?
2. Is the Patent System Broke?
3. Should the FTC be doing something about this?
4. All of the Above

I love the old Apple, but…

I plan to go into specifics about game design, project management, investors, studios, mobile game business. As usual I will try to keep the subject matter fun and full of multimedia goodness.

I’ve put the slides up on the download page as well GameIndustryLessonsLearned.pdf 3.5MB

During development we add calls from the game client code (the software on your smartphone) to the game servers (where the persistent data, leaderboards, shop data, etc. are kept) that track how players are playing the game. This is called “instrumenting” your game. This tracking data is used by the project managers and game designers to make effective decisions about what is working or not working and what can be done to make the game better. This tracking is called collecting metrics. Then you analyze the metrics of many players for statistical properties using analytics to optimize your design and iterate for greater enjoyment. When players are engaged and having fun, the value of making an IAP or buying DLC makes sense. Going from a free player to a paying players is called conversion – and ultimately leads to the financial success of the game.

Like the casino industry, games have begun to call the converted players “whales” (big spenders) and when analyzing the spending habits new categories have emerged like “minnows” (small spenders) and “dolphins” (medium spenders). There is another important lesson from casinos that many game designers fail to recognize: “whales” come to a casino when there is a lot of other people having fun in a social setting - when there is a party going on the value is there. Games with lots of free players have a party going on, and the “whales” will come.

Like websites that use hit tracking to tune UX/UI design, we can track which game screens are visited and which interactions the players select. If players take too long in the tutorial they may leave before they enjoy the actual gameplay, we can shorten or redesign the tutorial reducing friction that the players experience getting into the game. If menus are confusing we can prioritize the buttons based on frequency of use to optimize the menu design. This process means tracking and analyzing many players gameplay behavior.

While building our Item Shops we can price items and track which ones are used most and which might be priced too high. Over time we can tune these values so the functional power and IAP price reflect the kinds of economic behavior we want the game to have. Not too easy to play, and not so challenging that players never experience the content we design.

I like to keep in-game money earned while playing the game (Grind Currency or G$) separate from the in-game money people spend to buy IAP and DLC (Premium Currency or P$). P$ can be purchased with real money (dollars, etc.) using the app-store interface all F2P apps use. I try not to use real money directly for IAP or DLC as it can lead to confusion when you adjust prices or have promotional sales. It is also motivational for players to earn a bit of P$ for achievements and to denote progress – “earn 10 gold for leveling up”. Giving them a real $1.50 probably isn’t legal. Grinding for in-game money is a big part of many games, I typically say that the amount earned from grinding is roughly equivalent to 1/10 the amount earned from using IAP or DLC – this gives real value to spending P$.

These same buddies who ask me about F2P also wonder if isn’t “evil” or dishonest. Like any power, F2P can be used for less than honest reasons. There are some companies that learned the F2P formula and then tried making games that would prey on the psychological addiction to games and racked up large profits only to find that players get tired of being mistreated. Players are becoming much more sophisticated and recognize being scammed into paying for energy or undoing time locks without actual value.

One agrument against F2P is that that “core gamers” prefer paying for the game up front and then just enjoy the 10 to 30 hours of gameplay they paid for. There is a terrific game industry blog that posted “Why Core Gamers Hate Social Games: Because Their Selfish Exploitation Of Casual Gamers Is Coming To An End” - basically it suggests that casual gamers have been buying, but not finishing games for decades… and those casual gamers have been subsidizing the core gamers buy purchasing games they don’t actually finish or gain the real value for, but the new F2P games allow the casual gamers to enjoy the game as they like while the core gamers actually spend the money needed to finance the game. The result is that core gamers gain a large pool of players to engage with (see above about “whales” coming to the party) and the casual players become engaged enough that eventually they become paying players themselves.

This is an interesting redefinition of what “core” and “casual” actually means – and may for the first time reconcile what is really going on. The “core” players are the ones who pay for the game and “casual” players are the ones who provide the party or social atmosphere. I was always reluctant to believe the old definition by time played (core plays more than casual)  – my wife, who enjoys puzzles and card games, will play those for dozens of hours each week, but she would not consider herself a “gamer”, and as busy as I am, I generally only get limited time to play as many games as I like… and the ones I do get to play tend to be for 5 or 10 minutes at a time, but I definately define my lifestyle as “gamer” by choice. So I like the idea of “core” or “casual” describing a game player’s spending behavior, not the kinds of games they play.

When a game has real value - truly entertains the players, provides a means of social interaction with their friends, and provides a genuine community for player’s to engage in – then players are happy to pay for the IAP and DLC. Many of the games I’ve worked on have had incredible conversion rates, large viral growth, and enjoyed significant financial success. This wasn’t by abusing players, but by giving them what they want – real value to have some fun.

When choosing what metrics you are going to track and how to analyze the data remember that there is already a vast amount of work out there already. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, especially if you can partner with one of the tracking services that helps game companies instrument their games and have wonderful web dashboards to investigate those large data sets. Let them provide that service, while your team works on the game.

Hopefully this is useful to many of you, and if it generates more questions than it answers I am happy to answer them in the comments.

This time the topics goes into depth about steps and twists associated with heists and cons – in the fashion of TV shows like White Collar and Leverage.

As always you may download the slides too: RoguesInTheHouse.zip (171 KB) or RoguesInTheHouse.pdf (226 KB).

There are two parts – Designing your own RPG and Publishing your own RPG.

I’ve uploaded the whole presentation to the downloads section – DIY-RPG.zip – it includes some nice support files like Paul’s Open Office demo and my PocketMod for Serif PagePlus. I hope you enjoy the contents.

I plan to follow this post with more details than we were able to fit into the slides, including sections on what to include in the GM and world building sections of your RPG and a piece on game design in general to help people get started… look for those soon.

I also spoke on the panels for “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Dungeon” and “Fighting with the Brain for GMs” – both of which were terrific fun for me.

If you attended or enjoyed the slides and materials please let us know by commenting below.

1. Make friends like a dog, cuddle like a cat, and collect nuts like a squirrel.
2. You are what you do every day – think about it and then ask “What did I do today?”
3. Loving is the little things you do everyday for someone you care about.
4. Never stop learning – someone who doesn’t read is no different than someone who can’t read – a closed mind is “kaput”.
5. You can never know enough, but you can be too smart for your own good.
6. Sometimes it is much harder to say “yes” than it is to say “no” – but it almost always is more rewarding.
7. Never, ever, stop asking why?
8. Travel more – your point of view can always use a new map pin.
9. People are generally good – but some people are ignorant and some people are jerks. Don’t listen to the ignorant and don’t bother with the jerks.
10. Live your life like there is no tomorrow, but treat the Earth better than a library book.
11. Leave your campsite in better condition than when you found it.
12. Thank goodness women are built like they are – I can’t think of a better design.
13. Thank goodness women are understanding of the crazy stuff men do.
14. Thank goodness my memory works in such a way that I can’t remember the crazy stuff women do (see #12).
15. A messy desk is not a sign of a messy mind.
16. One man’s piles are another woman’s mess.
17. It is not actually all about “who dies with the most toys wins”.
18. If you aren’t very good at something, you might not be asked to do it again.
19. Believe every fortune cookie.
20. Luck is believing enough to make stuff happen the way you want it to.
21. Bad Luck is not understanding that what you think can actually happen.
22. Learn from the best: Spirit like Teddy Roosevelt, Ingenuity like Albert Einstein, Imagination like Dr. Seuss, Wisdom like Yoda, Leadership like Captain Picard, Compete like Captain Kirk and Enjoy life like Doctor Who.
23. Life is a journey – a journey with vista points, attractions, historical markers, souvenir shops, and some really scary public bathrooms.
24. Life is like a box of chocolates – some times you just have to take one, bite it, and spit out the bad ones.
25. Life is like an arcade game – you got to put a token in, you might not get to play what you want, sometimes you get a one up, some times you have to use the smart bomb, and when you win your only recognition is 3 measly letters that will disappear when it gets unplugged,

Cheers,
Randy Angle

In years past it has filled 3 halls in the LA Convention Center – this year the 3rd hall was closed. Which meant a bit less walking and I was actually able to see most things in a single day.

Nintendo 3DS
First, I braved the 1.5 hour line to get into see the new Nintendo 3DS – the lines got much longer after the initial rush when the doors opened.

It is INCREDIBLE! As a person who wears glasses I enjoyed a real 3D movie for the first time (I hate wearing the polarized lenses over my own glasses). I played games, tech demos, watched moves, took 3D pictures and had fun for almost a half hour. The accelerometer and gyroscope worked flawlessly and with own user-facing camera and 2 stereoscopic away-facing cameras the most fun was with Augmented Reality apps. Games like Mario Kart, Resident Evil and MGS were fantastic, but there were demos of simple vertical shooter games that had parallax layers of 2D graphics that really looked new and innovative again.

3DS Features:

• Faster CPU – we don’t know who makes it or how fast yet
• 3D display with adjustable slider for 3D effect (maximum to off)
• Larger touch pad display – 320×240 (old screen was 240×192)
• Analog control pad
• User-facing camera for face grabs
• 3D Away-facing camera for Augmented Reality and photo/video taking
• Downloadable games like DSi
• Gyroscope – knows exact orientation
• Accelerometer – senses shaking and movement
• D-pad, 4 action buttons and 2 shoulder buttons
• 50+ 3D enabled games at launch – compatible with all old DS games

The 3DS wins the show award for the most BUZZ – which is what E3 is all about. Buy stock now!

Nintendo General
I was not able to brave the second long line for the new Zelda game, but I did get to see it played and enjoyed what I saw. Wii Party and Kirby’s Epic Yarn looked particularly good as well. Golden Sun looked great. I really appreciated Nintendo having such a nice layout to the booth – it made waiting in line entertaining because I was still playing games and watching trailers.

Sony
Kind of disappointing. Everything looked like games I’d already seen, version X.0. Even Little Big Planet 2.0, which I was hoping would really innovate with the new 3D level building tools they promised looked like v1.0 with some harder to use tools. Move, Sony’s new motion controller, had some support. I believe that too many developers were just trying to use it as a fancy 3D mouse. It feels too much like a Wii-remote with Motion-Plus and a nunchuck controller to be called innovative.

Microsoft
Kinect, MS’s new name for Project Natal, had a lot of support and was playable in many booths including Microsoft, Capcom, Ubisoft, MTV and many more. An observation made by many people based on the size of the demo areas was, “I don’t have an apartment/house big enough to play Kinect games.” With all the jumping, running, dancing and bouncing around it does seem like you will want a BIG area to play in. The new tiny Xbox 360 with the built in WiFi and 250GB HD was very nice.

Disney
Epic Mickey and Guilty Party were both pretty impressive. Epic Mickey feels like a Zelda or Mario scale game made in the good old USA. It felt moody and cool and will be fun to play. Guilty Party was something brand new – it combines elements of the Clue board game, with mini-games and social party style games to create a very innovative mystery party game. It reminds me of Mortimer Beckett (I worked on the Wii version) and my friend, Keith Nemitz’s game, “Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!”

Unexpected
While watching the trailer loop for Nexon (Maple Story, Kart Rider) I found out that they have over 200 Million MAU for their Dungeon Fighter game – a arcade style side-scrolling beat’em up with tons of players and monsters on screen at one time. Numbers like 200+ Million make even Farmville seem small by comparison. It is a staggering number of users and certainly explains why they have decided to develop their own social network.

Innovation
I learned some years ago that many of the big publishers can’t innovate any more – they have their franchise brands and must release a new one each year or two, or the investment in that brand dies. So I treat E3 like a big Easter Egg hunt… searching high and low for games that explore new ground – trailblazers. This means I lurk around the back of booths, in the corners of the halls and chat with folks standing in lines about what they think was ‘cool’. Over the years I seem to get lucky finding small booths that mostly don’t even have primarily English speakers. Teams from Taiwan, South Korea, Finland, German, Sweden come to see if they can breakout and make it in the BIG industry of video games.

My E3 2010 favorites are:

• Dungeon Viva – a web-based Taiwan knock-off of the classic Dungeon Keeper with very cool graphics and funny story
• Nindou – a web-based multiplayer battle game that looks like it might have had 2 people working on it (1 artist, 1 engineer) – I think it was made in a game maker I’d never seen before
• Dragon Nest – An MMO like Dragonica from the great Nexon folks – cute graphics, epic feeling gameplay and story- easy to learn to play – I almost lost track of time I was enjoying it so much
• BlockParty.com – a social community build around all the Nexon titles for the hundreds of millions of loyal fans to share invites, hook-up for multiplayer, send messages, and provide the viral mechanisms that Facebook enjoys – but everyone is a gamer already

Weird
While searching for innovation I usually find the occasional weird stuff. This year was fascinating – Renken had a full hair styling studio on the main E3 floor and was styling girls hair – later I did find out that it was in promotion for a game – Busy Scissors – originally I just thought it was an excuse to give away free hair products. One company had a booth giving away samples of GamerGrub – bags of snacks especially designed for gamer’s tastes. The company that makes the slime that cleans your keyboards was selling bags of yellow goop for $5. The list goes on and on – but what did they have to do with games???? I may never know.

Schwag/Swag/Chotskis
I notice a trend to give away a link to a wacky picture more this year. Attendees dress up in a funny costume related to the game and then get their picture taken with a site to pick it up from. Some just built the set and assume you brought your own camera. There was still plenty of candy, t-shirts, and buttons. I didn’t find any key-chains. BTW – GamerGrub is good. My best schwag of the show is a bunch of black recycled fiber bags to carry my groceries in – Thank you E3 for making me a greener person.

Tell me what you liked, or ask me about what I saw – post your comments below.