gdc-2012
Latest
The new SimCity in video form, flaming houses and all
Would you like to get a look at SimCity before anyone else? So would we! But all we've got is these prototype videos shown off during a Maxis panel at GDC 2012 yesterday, which partially feature debug artwork (read: not final!). Also, hey, houses on fire!
Heavy Rain creators produce 'Kara' PS3 tech-demo (video)
Heavy Rain creator David Cage was showing off Quantic Dream's new game engine at GDC, which includes an innovative new performance-capture technology the company's developed. He's directed a seven-minute original short called Kara, which is the story of a female android as she becomes self-aware. Unlike traditional game production methods, this technology is able to record face and body movements at the same time as recording the actors voice -- ensuring natural and consistent performances from the characters. Actress Valorie Curry wore 90 sensors on her face, unlike in, say, Avatar, where the performers wore head-mounted cameras. Cage promises that the short is nothing more than a demo (it was rendered in real-time on a PlayStation 3) and none of these elements will appear in his next game. You can catch the impressive-looking footage after the break with one disclaimer: there's nudity throughout and a reference to adult themes, okay?
Keiji Inafune on why you shouldn't tease unannounced projects
"I don't think I mentioned anything about PlayStation Vita," Keiji Inafune told me in an interview this morning. His answer -- an outright lie -- elicited laughs from myself and his translator, both of us having attended his state of the Japanese game industry panel yesterday at GDC 2012 -- where he teased a PlayStation Vita project."I can say that I got in trouble from Sony," he said. Uh oh! Unsurprisingly, Inafune wouldn't budge on any more details, only adding that, "You should be able to hear something more in detail soon." That's right, folks -- even important devs like Keiji Inafune can't just walk around saying whatever they want about unannounced projects all willy nilly.But don't fret, fans, as Inafune plans on launching his already announced Nintendo 3DS project, King of Pirates, worldwide. "For all my titles, I'm looking to do worldwide publishing. I can't say who is publishing because it could be Marvelous directly or maybe they're going to find another publisher in the US," he said. "But the plan is to do it worldwide."
Confronting The Showdown Effect and its Super Smash Bros. inspiration
The Showdown Effect, the new jam from Magicka developer Arrowhead Game Studios and newcomer Pixeldiet Entertainment, was inspired by '80s and '90s action movies, and even Nintendo's multiplayer-focused brawler, Super Smash Bros.Emil Englund, Design Director at Arrowhead Game Studios, offered some insight regarding the creation of the game as he watched me experiment with the shotguns, pistols, rifles, pool cues, stools and rocket launchers cluttering up Neo Tokyo, 2027. The future's a pretty violent place!%Gallery-149554%
GDC 2012: A peek behind SWTOR's project management curtain
GDC is often described as the most cerebral of the various gaming conventions. E3 has its big reveals and booth babes, PAX has its fan-friendly hands-on sessions and general geekery. GDC, though, is mainly by developers and for developers, and last night's BioWare panel was a good case in point. The session ran for well over an hour (not counting a brief Q&A at the end), and it focused largely on the daunting management tasks inherent in a project like Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Yasuhiro Wada working with Swery on new Deadly Premonition PS3 project
During his GDC panel (ostensibly a Classic Game Postmortem on Harvest Moon), former Marvelous CEO Yasuhiro Wada casually revealed that he's working with Hidetaka "Swery65" Suehiro on a new Deadly Premonition project for PS3.The announcement was far too casual to include details -- like whether it's a sequel or some kind of update of the original (which came out on PS3 in Japan) -- but Wada said that a for-real announcement was possible at E3.
Witcher 2 devs: 'We will never use any DRM anymore'
Speaking at GDC 2012 today, CD Project Red CEO Marcin Iwinski declared that the developer behind the Witcher games would never use digital rights management to protect its games."Every subsequent game we will never use any DRM anymore, it's just over-complicating things," Iwinski said. His presentation was hinged on how the Polish publisher sold over a million copies of the game on a modest budget."We release the game. It's cracked in two hours, it was no time for Witcher 2. What really surprised me is that the pirates didn't use the GOG version, which was not protected. They took the SecuROM retail version, cracked it and said 'we cracked it' -- meanwhile there's a non-secure version with a simultaneous release. You'd think the GOG version would be the one floating around.""DRM does not protect your game," Iwinski told Joystiq after the presentation. "If there are examples that it does, then people maybe should consider it, but then there are complications with legit users."We're sure Ubisoft has no idea what Iwinski is talking about.
Levine on BioShock Infinite's supposed 'special Move controller' and miscommunication in game development
It's called 'the snowball effect.' One piece of information grows into something greater than it was ever meant to be. This effect can take hold even when the information is incorrect to begin with. This was the case when the PlayStation UK site claimed a special Move device was being released alongside the PS3 version of BioShock Infinite."My understanding of what happened with that was some marketing person at Sony said, 'Oh, I think there's a Move peripheral for this.' And they put it out there and we saw it and were just like, 'Uh. Really? We never heard of that before," Ken Levine told me last week.Levine admits that errors like this happen "a lot."%Gallery-126035%
Sony: PS Move ships 10.5 million units
The PlayStation Move has shipped 10.5 million units, according to statements made by Sony during a panel at GDC. The Move had shipped nine million units as of last November, and around 8 million last April, making the peripheral's Holiday-shopping performance slightly better than the seven months prior."Shipped" and "sold" mean very different things, of course, but we imagine Sony is pleased with breaking 10 million either way. We're pleased as well, because it means 10.5 million real, actual human beings may strap Move controllers to their butts at some point. If we can get them all to do it at the same time, world peace will be an inevitability.
Face off against The Showdown Effect beta this summer
We certainly don't blame you for wanting to play The Showdown Effect. Thankfully, here at GDC, Paradox Interactive was more than happy to oblige and sat me down in front of a PC next to Emil Englund, Design Director at Arrowhead Game Studios. But before I could place my fingers over the WASD keys and start shooting everything in sight, I had to ask one question: Will there be a beta?"Beta in the summer," Englund quickly responded. As for how the beta will work and who will get in, Englund says "that's still being decided" by publisher Paradox Interactive, and that more would be revealed later.Another question I had was in regards to controller support -- Magicka on the PC is compatible with Microsoft's Xbox 360 controller, and when asked if The Showdown Effect would support it too, Englund told me that the earliest testing on The Showdown Effect was done with controllers. "The first months of development we actually only used game pads so, yeah, it should be in there," he told me.The Showdown Effect is currently slated to launch "when it's done -- in 2012."%Gallery-149554%
GDC 2012: Locking on to MechWarrior Online
The notion of strapping oneself into a massive battle robot chassis and duking it out with other 'Mechs appeals to the inner child in all of us (or it should), so it's hard not to feel a tingle of excitement when the makers of MechWarrior Online promise that we'll soon be able to do just that. We caught up with the Piranha Games crew at GDC to become one of the very first non-studio witnesses of MWO's in-game footage and to hear why this is a title that should be on all of our radars. The team is filled with huge fans of the MechWarrior and BattleTech franchises, so the devs were eager to construct a proper MechWarrior title when Piranha got ahold of the license this year. The studio seized upon the free-to-play model early on as the best way to draw in as many potential 'Mech pilots as possible. It also snagged the CryEngine 3 to provide the best possible graphical fidelity for its product. Unfortunately, it's going to be hard to categorize MWO as "massively," as its non-persistent arena maps will host up to only 24 players in 12v12 fights. Setting-wise, MechWarrior Online begins in 3049, but that date will keep tempo with the real-world calendar (so tomorrow it'll be March 9th, 3049, and so on). As events happen in the story according to the game's canon, the game will change to reflect that in real-time. Read on to hear what the devs had to say about two of the game's four pillars: mech warfare and role warfare.
Civilization 5: Gods and Kings devs discuss community-driven changes
Civilization 5's "Gods & Kings" expansion is looking to satisfy the demand for more depth in the strategy, following the game's launch just under a year and a half ago.One of the top three changes made due to community feedback, according to Lead Designer Ed Beach, is that the AI opponent no longer holds grudges that last millennia. He also noted that diehard Civilization 4 players complained there was a lack of depth in the gameplay, which is why religion, diplomacy and combat were added or overhauled. Finally, the combat tech tree doesn't have awkward dead ends anymore. Crossbows can now become gatling gunners, which then become machine gunners.Producer Dennis Shirk echoed Beach, saying the religion, espionage and combat mechanics were the focus of change. Specific changes affect certain naval units, which now have "melee" abilities that allow them to invade cities after significant bombardment. There's also more flexibility in stacking units, though don't expect the classic "stack of doom" to return. Finally, espionage is handled through one screen with no actual units on the board, streamlining the process of cost and consequence.The expansion includes 27 new units, 13 new buildings and nine new Wonders, which Firaxis didn't describe further at this event. The expansion is expected to launch in late spring, sometime "before the kids get out of school." Study comes first, kids!
Double Fine remembers 'Amnesia Fortnight' in GDC postmortem
In a GDC panel called "Creative Panic: How Agility Turned Terror Into Triumph," project leads from Double Fine's quartet of "Amnesia Fortnight" projects each outlined the process and inspiration behind their games -- with the exception of Costume Quest's Tasha Harris, who didn't share her insights because she wasn't there. "Amnesia Fortnight is a psychedelic mushroom and we all took it," studio head Tim Schafer said, before adding that it was really a two-week team game design exercise held in the middle of Brütal Legend work.Born from a break in AAA development, the Amnesia Fortnight forged a new direction for the company when Brütal Legend 2 was canceled.
99 Games focuses on time management genre, looks ahead
This week's Game Developer's Conference was, I believe, the second time I've meet up with 99 Games, an independent, India-based studio with quite an iOS library. The company has found an audience with time management games. These ask you to manage virtual customers, moving them from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Prison Mayhem is a popular example from 99 Games's catalog (Diner Dash is another example of the genre, though not from 99 Games). Founder Rohith Bhat says the company has been developing on its own time mangement game engine, which will let them develop games quickly and then port them to Android within "less than a month." That may seem a little mechanical, but this genre is set in stone. The games only require players (who tend to skew female, and sometimes even a little older) to execute a few simple taps and swipes to keep the game going. Therefore, 99 Games can crank these out and appeal to many markets with the same genre. The company's latest title is called Night Club Mayhem. It requires you to move clubgoers through a series of nightclubs, sending them from the entryway to the coffee bar, the "mocktail bar" and finally the dance floor. To play, you simply drag a customer over to a certain part of the screen as requested, and then tap on them to take care of whatever they need. Bhat says he is working on some minigames with a little more action, like choosing the right stamp for the nightclub, or serving the food to customers. However, too much complexity will lose that casual audience that these games need to stay alive. There's both a story mode (in which a young woman needs to build up her father's club empire over time), and an endless mode to play with. Things are very business-as-usual for this genre. Bhat isn't wasting any time putting his engine to work, either. There's yet another time management game due out from 99 in another three months. The company showed me two other games they're working on, both which add just a little more innovation. Tito's Shell is the more intriguing title. It's heavily influenced by physics puzzle games like Cut the Rope, in that you need to make some physical objects interact to try and connect a round turtle named Tito with his circular shell. But the key component here is that objects can be connected together. Once a line is drawn between them, the line will pull them together. Those lines can be used in all sorts of ways. Sometimes Tito can be pulled to his shell, and sometimes the lines keep objects from going off the screen the wrong way. In one level, connected lines open up doors and pull up platforms, pushing Tito and his shell together. Unfortunately, the interface looks a little clunky (which makes sense, given that this is 99 Games' first entry into a genre like this), but there are some good ideas. Tito's Shell should be out next month. Finally, I saw a title called Dream Star that should also be out next month, and it's the company's first entry into social freemium gaming. The idea is that you're building up a character into a movie star. In order to succeed, you'll need to use the game's freemium engine to do all the things movie stars would normally do, like work out, take on jobs as models and actors, get seen at clubs and go shopping. They even get caught by the paparazzi. There are a few minigames too, but most of Dream Star is just customizing your character, and then clicking away on the various activities (at least as long as the in-game energy stat will allow you to). This one seems targeted at a younger female audience. Most older gamers probably won't look twice at it, but 99 Games could build a significant following if the right players find this one out. Bhat has laid claim to his time management titles. They may not appeal to all players (and certainly they're not doing anything too innovative), but there's definitely a place on the App Store for those. We'll have to see if 99 Games' other experiments in various popular mobile genres pan out in the next few months or so.
How Resident Evil 2 helped Keiji Inafune become the indie dev he is today
Back in the mid-90s, now acclaimed Japanese developer Shinji Mikami was passionately toiling away on the first game in a soon-to-be hit franchise: Resident Evil. It was to be published by Capcom, but the company had reservations about the new intellectual property -- so much so that it nearly canned the project outright. Ex-Capcom global head of production Keiji Inafune recalled his side of the story during an impassioned GDC 2012 speech yesterday.Inafune claims he watched from the outside as Capcom's support for Resident Evil faded, and while he worked on other titles within the same company. Mikami fought for the fledgling game, eventually getting it published for Sony's PlayStation. The rest, of course, is zombie-ridden history.When Capcom began work on a sequel, Inafune says he got himself involved in a production role. "While Mikami focused on the game, as the producer, it was my mission to sell this title to as many people around the world," he said to a room full of attendees. But with the massive success of the first RE title, Inafune's role as salesman was relegated to a cake walk. "With my previous title Mega Man Legends, it was pretty challenging to even book a round of press appointments. No one was interested in hearing about a new Mega Man title," Inafune said. "However, the scenario was completely different with RE2. Once we announced the project, the requests poured in."
Mechwarrior Tactics features cinematic replays, more details stomp out
We got our first real look at MechWarrior Tactics today at GDC. The game fills a weird niche with some neat features. The free-to-play, turn-based strategy plays like something more akin to iOS treats Hero Academy or Words with Friends, with asynchronous or concurrent turn-based combat forming the heart of the game. It's a "core" title set in the BattleTech universe -- so, it's "mid-core"?After each player makes his move in the one-versus-one, player-versus-player map, the game tosses all the turn-based pretense aside and replays the action in a spiffy cinematic. By the time MechWarrior Tactics launches later this year, developer hope to have the camera AI choose the sexy angles for maximum mech-exploding money shots. The camera is all about the long shots in the pre-alpha build.At the end of a match, players are able to watch the whole match as one movie, and share it on their favorite social media platforms, like Friendster, YouTube and Facebook.Roadhouse Interactive and Acronym didn't go too deep into how the game's store will operate, but they did show us a booster pack which featured three armaments and a mech chassis. Like most of the current free-to-play games coming to market, money won't win the battle -- but it will speed up building the Atlas of your dreams.%Gallery-149244%%Gallery-148140%
SoftKinetic brings DepthSense range sensor to GDC, hopes to put it in your next TV
Microsoft's Kinect may have put depth sensors in the eye of the common consumer, but they aren't the only outfit in the game -- Belgian startup SoftKinetic has their own twist on the distance sensing setup. The literally named "DepthSense" range sensor uses infrared time-of-flight technology, which according to representatives, allows it to not only accurately calculate depth-sensitivity in dark, cramped spaces, but more importantly offers a shallower operating distance than its competition. We dropped by SoftKinetic's GDC booth to see exactly how cramped we could get. It turns out the sensor can accurately read individual fingers between four to fourteen feet (1.5 - 4.5 meters), we had no trouble using it to pinch our way through a few levels of a mouse-emulated session of Angry Birds. The developer hardware we saw on the show floor was admittedly on the bulky side, but if all goes to plan, SoftKinetic says we'll see OEMs stuff the tech into laptops and ARM-powered TVs in the near future. In the meantime, though, gesture-crazy consumers can look forward to a slimmer version of this rig in stores sometime this holiday season. Hit the break for a quick demo of the friendly sensor in action. %Gallery-150189% Dante Cesa contributed to this post.
Long Mario is long: early Super Mario 3D Land concepts that didn't make it
Super Mario 3D Land director Koichi Hayashida opened his GDC talk with some concepts that didn't make it into the final game. They were ... wacky. The ideas included a "Huge Mario," who is so huge that you can only see the bottom half of his body on the screen, and a long Mario: "He has long arms and long legs, sort of scary," Hayashi said, in English. "I'd like to give this idea to Luigi's Mansion 2 team."Hayashida also showed simple animated drawings of a "Pro Skater Mario" riding a Koopa shell on a half pipe, and a cockroach that would appear on the top screen, forcing you to quickly shut the 3DS to crush it. And finally, "You can change Peach's face ... to your girlfriend's face!"He then asked what we expected to see in a 2012 Mario game, showing some of these concepts again. "If you are here today, please don't write 'the new Mario game will be pro skater Mario with cockroaches!'" Hayashida quickly interjected. "We might get in trouble."
Nintendo pushes connnectivity message on GDC display
You can the see the image above on a wall in Nintendo's GDC booth this week, and discern a new (and surprising) angle for 3DS marketing. The poster advertises the 3DS as "Nintendo's most connected console ever," touting online services like Swapnote, Nintendo Zone, and ... Nintendo Video. In a nicely progressive move, it acknowledges the existence of the eShop!
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim awarded 'Game of the Year' at 2012 Game Developers Choice Awards
With the Game Developers Choice Awards just now coming to an end, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was announced as the overall 'Game of the Year' winner for 2011.We're not surprised, folks. It's pretty good.For a complete recap of the nominees and winners, check out our previous coverage.
