|-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-| Author: Ben "D3pth Charge" Ballinger Date: 2006 - 01 - 05 Link: http://planethalflife.gamespy.com/View2fc2.php?view=Previews.Detail&id=6 Link: http://web.archive.org/web/20060110220312/http://www.planethalflife.com:80/features/articles/bwg/day04.shtm |-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-| Black Widow Games: Five Days of Fear (Day 4) The final interview in the Five Days of Fear series brings us back with Designer, Project Manager & Programmer Einar Saukas of Brazil and Game & Level Designer Neil Manke of Canada — the senior developers at Black Widow Games. Today we learn a bit about what it's like running a larger enterprise, and what it really takes to develop a commercial game or mod. > day04_01.jpg > Buddy Holly isn't dead, he became a Priest and now lurks in the bushes! D3pth Charge: Looking back over the past few days, readers have had a chance to learn quite a bit about They Hunger's history, as well as some information about the upcoming chapter, Lost Souls. Yesterday we gained some insight into how a few of your newest team members got started in the project. Now it's time to look at how you, the senior developers, are handling the technical side of Black Widow Games. To start off with, what are each of your backgrounds and previous experiences within the gaming world? Neil: I have been working on game and level design since 1997, soon after Quake was released. It was initially just a hobby for me, but my maps became very popular and I started receiving offers for contract-work mapping. That's when we founded Black Widow Games and started working on a sponsored mod for Rysher Entertainment to promote the Special Ops TV series. Einar: I have been involved with game development most of my life, starting with Z80 assembly programming at 12, before most of the team was even born. I'm an electronics engineer with a master degree in computer science, with about 15 years professional experience as software developer, project manager and senior consultant. In my spare time I've published (literally) hundreds of game articles and reviews, mainly for the Brazilian magazine Info Exame. At Black Widow Games, I mainly work as game designer, project manager and programmer. D3pth Charge: One of the most difficult parts for beginning mod leaders seems to be delegating tasks in an efficient manner to the team. Who are the members of the development team, what are their positions and how do you go about deciding who is responsible for each job? Neil: We have a small but highly efficient team of about a dozen developers. All have previously worked on mod development and some have professional experience with other commercial games. Our official web site has brief profiles concerning each person. Einar: Several of us have been working together for a very long time. When we started Black Widow Games in 1997, I was coding Quake-C for Neil's maps, Magnus Jansén and Paul Taylor were testing them. Other team members participated in our most recent projects, including the classic They Hunger mod trilogy itself. Neil: We previously produced 14 promotional mods for Quake and Half-Life. This experience taught us to produce games very efficiently with minimal resources, before we finally decided to develop our first commercial game. Einar: A common mistake in project management is to delegate tasks as if people were just numbers in a spreadsheet. We always schedule activities considering the kind of work that best matches each one's abilities, strengths and preferences. Another common mistake is to believe that detailed planning restrains creativity. We always keep an open mind about new ideas, analyze their potential to improve the game and readjust our planning as many times as needed to accommodate them, which is still much better than having no schedule at all. D3pth Charge: Do you find that responsibilities overlap between positions, and/or that team members' work is affected by other members' work? (IE: does the programming affect design, or vice versa?) Neil: Einar and I share the main responsibilities for game design, and this establishes the basic outline that helps to guide everybody's work. Everyone still has a fair amount of independence but carefully planning tasks in advance ensure each one's contributions fit together into a coherent game. D3pth Charge: As we all know, one of the biggest attractions to a mod is the level of professionalism shown in media releases and of course, the final product: the mod itself. In order to set high standards, a team has to consist of members that are able to perform to that standard. Keeping this in mind, what criteria did you use when hiring? Einar: We look especially for quality, talent, discipline, responsibility, common sense and hard work. We try to evaluate this when interviewing candidates and analyzing samples of their previous works. > day04_02.jpg > Who's hungry??? D3pth Charge: Why did you choose the Source engine, and how does it compare to other cutting-edge graphics engines? Are there any obstacles that you have encountered because of your choice to use Source as your platform? Neil: Half-Life 2 Source is a very attractive technology for several reasons. For me, the main advantage is a very productive level editor, which allows me to create the level designs faster than most other developing environments. Einar: The source code is also very flexible and customizable, making it easily adaptable for all kinds of game styles. It also provides the best physics simulation, which is essential to create more realistic scenarios and interesting puzzles. Neil: Obviously every graphics engine has specific strengths and limitations, more adequate to certain types of scenarios than others. We took into account the Source engine's characteristics in our game design since the beginning, and because of this we never faced any serious obstacles later. D3pth Charge: In terms of attention to detail, deadlines and efficiency, do you notice any differences between how it is now that you are making a commercial game and when you were making freely distributed mods? Neil: There are several differences. High quality is obviously very important for a mod, but rough spots are still acceptable as long as the final result is really fun. However, a commercial game requires more rigorous quality control, longer development cycles and more content, demanding more organization, planning and resources. D3pth Charge: You guys have a lot of experience with game design—not only with single-player modifications, but with multiplayer modifications as well, such as your Underworld: Bloodline project for Sony Pictures. In what aspects does game design differ for a multiplayer game and a single-player game? In your opinion, is one easier to create than the other? Einar: There's no doubt developing a single-player game requires more initial work than multiplayer. It requires character creation, scripting, storyline, dialogues, AI, special sequences, monster variations, enemy placement, ambushes, puzzles, and so on. Single-player also demands the creation of many different and varied locations, unlike multiplayer games where a small set of maps will do, initially. Neil: The development cycle for a multiplayer mod is completely different. It doesn't have to be implement all at once, it actually works better when it's released as early as possible and gradually improved based on players' feedback. In this case, the main challenge is not to actually create a multiplayer mod, but the continuous work required to keep improving it and gradually increase its popularity. Einar: The multiplayer mod we created to promote Sony's movie was produced in only two months and attracted a lot of attention. Unfortunately we never had a budget to keep working on it after the movie was released, so we didn't have a chance to try expanding its popularity. D3pth Charge: In most industries in order to be successful, project teams have to prioritize their work; the most important, critical aspects of the project need to be completed before any other parts are worked on. How does your team prioritize its work? Einar: We break down all game features into individual tasks and classify them according to their relevance. The ones directly related to the storyline and gameplay received a higher priority, other features that don't affect too much the rest of the game are postponed and may even be cancelled later if we really run out of time. Activities that affect someone else's work are always implemented first. Neil: Teams working on horror mods usually start working on monster models since it's the most fun part and it attracts much more attention. In Lost Souls, we have followed the opposite path and kept using placeholder models until recently, simply because it was more efficient to concentrate first on other models required by level design for instance, and much easier to replace monster models later without affecting anything else. > day04_03.jpg > The utmost attention to detail was used when emulating eastern European-style architecture D3pth Charge: There are many ways to plan out projects. A team can try and cover all the ground before starting, so that they have a distinctive, clear view of their goal throughout the development process, or a team can brainstorm ideas and go from there, allowing themselves to change their mind as they go, which is sometimes where the most creative ideas come from. What method of planning does your team follow? In your experiences, which method produces the best results? Neil: We have a mixed approach. Although we plan the entire game and establish the general game design in advance, we are not very restrictive about specific details so we maintain the flexibility to incorporate new ideas as we go. Keeping the project under control while continuously improving the original design takes a lot of management and we have to frequently re-evaluate our design in order to accommodate new ideas without impacting the work already done. However, that's the price we have to pay for targeting efficiency and creativity in the same project. D3pth Charge: Thank you so much for this opportunity to take an intensive look into a part of game development that most of the average gamers don't normally get to see. Hopefully this week's interviews and articles will motivate more people to try their hand in mod creation! Neil: Thanks! Einar: Thanks!