How a Game Gets Made: A Radio Play Act 2: Idea to Implementation

Act 2

Sounds of Guitar Hero or Rock Band.

CARSON: Hey, man, could you like, turn that off?  I can’t fucking think, man.

TYLER: Hold on…oh yeah. Check it. I said, check it out, man!

Music abruptly stops.

TYLER: Dude!? What the fuck’s wrong with you? You got your period or something?

CARSON: I got class in like 20 minutes and I gotta get this assignment done.  I gotta come up with an idea for a videogame and so far I got shit.

TYLER: Ok, dude, check this out.  This is sooo fucking cool.  A dude and me totally made this game in high school, but like we didn’t finish it.

CARSON: Yeah, ok, what?

TYLER: Animal shooter, dude.

CARSON: You suck, man.

TYLER: No, listen, man…you got animals, see, and they have like weapons and shit and they fight each other…

voice trails off, cross fades in…

CARSON…and my last idea is..for…an RTS where the teams are…factions of animals…and they have weapons and powers and…

Sounds of students talking and reacting…bell rings.

BRENT: Sounds intriguing, Tyler.  Please see me after class.

Sounds of shuffling papers, students talking, leaving class.

TYLER: Yeah, you wanted to see me?

BRENT: Tyler, I have a friend who works in QA at Electric Arse games.  I’d like to share your idea with him.

TYLER: Sure man, whatever. (under his breath) What a dick.  That idea sucks.

Sounds crossfade into noisy conference room at Electric Arse.

LIZ: What about a shooter that takes place on an Indian reservation and…

SEVERAL VOICES: Prey!

MACK: Ok, so..there’s this base on Mars and…

VOICES: Red Faction…

BEN: (shouting to be heard over the noise) What about animals?

MACK: What about animals?

BEN: I guy a know down in QA had this idea for an RPG/RTS/FPS hybrid…the characters are all animals, see…

LIZ: With big tits I suppose.

MACK: Shut up, Liz.

VOICE: I like animals.

VOICE 2: An animal RPG…hmmm

VOICE 3: Like an all-animal Oblivion…maybe we can use the engine.

WILLIAM: Ok, ok…everyone, you all have one day to come up with ideas for this new animal RPG shooter.  We’ll meet back here in the morning.

Sounds of excited discussion as the meeting breaks up.  MACK: ..a gorilla with big ass tits…oh yeah.

How a Game Gets Made: A Radio Play Act 1–The Idea

How do games go from concept to shrink wrap?  The following radio play was written to illustrate the process.

ACT 1: The Idea

Background sounds of a recognizable FPS–Call of Duty or Halo, turned up way too loud.

TRENT: Oh, fuck, man, I totally pwned you, dude!

TYLER: Head shot! Head shot! Eat lead, muthafucka!

TRENT: Dude, that dude was totally on your own team.

TYLER: Awesome.

Sound of a cat meowing.

TRENT: Yo, cat…want to go for a ride?

Sound of dog barking and cat screeching.

TYLER: What the fuck, dude. You threw my cat on the dog.

TRENT: (laughing hysterically) Dude, that cat fucking pwned!

TYLER: (laughing also) Good thing the dog didn’t have, like, a BFG or the cat would have been fucking toast.

TRENT: Dude! Dude! That is a totally awesome idea for a game, man!

TYLER: What is?

TRENT: You know…like, a fucking animal shooter.

TYLER: That’s fucked up, dude. I don’t want to shoot animals.

TRENT: No, dude. Don’t be an asswipe.  I mean like, a game where like the animals shoot each other and shit.

TYLER: Oh, dude…that’s awesome. (with growing excitement) And like the cats could shoot beams of energy out their eyes and like the rhinos could have cannons in their horns…

TRENT: Yeah, dude. And like, the dog’s fleas could like jump off and attack!

TYLER: We have so totally got to make this game, dude.

TRENT: (already losing interest, going back to his game) Totally, dude.

TYLER: Totally. Whatever.

TRENT’S MOM: I’m leaving for work now.  You boys behave yourselves.

TRENT: Whatever. Bye, mom.

TYLER: Hey, man, your Mom’s kinda hot.

TRENT: Gross, man. (sound of explosion) Booya!

Next time: Act 2–from Idea to Production

The Story Paradox

I’ve spent a little time with the new Ghostbusters game and have had a pretty good experience so far.  It certainly captures the tone and vibe of the films. The designers made a smart choice right off the bat: the player assumes the role of a raw recruit to the team (ala Battlefield: Bad Company) instead of jumping into the skin of one of the beloved, iconic characters.  After all, the ironic, wisecracking, and sharply written quartet of Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Harold Ramis is what made the original films snap and pop.  This is essentially an interactive version of Ghostbusters 3.

But once again, the solution is also the problem.  Because by crafting a well-written script and story, Ramis and Ackroyd have made the player- character essentially meaningless, an impediment to getting on with the plot.  This is obvious right from the start, where you team up with one of the original Ghostbusters to rid a hotel of spooks and start your training.  Over and over, the NPC will stop and cool their heels while you fumble for the action that will advance the story to the next set piece.  Sure, you might feel like bumbling noob member of the squad and a real member of the team, but there’s no getting around the fact that the story is going to play by the script, it’s just a matter of how skillfully you can facilitate it.  In the case of Ghostbusters, maybe the experience of dipping into that happy, snarky world is reward enough.

A well-crafted story has rules, it has structure, it has beats that must be hit at certain times.  Virtually every great story in film, literature, television, or theatre has followed the four-act, beginning/middle/climax/ending structure.   Likewise, every successful example of storytelling has characters who fit into the structure, who play roles that advance the story or create the conflict or provide the subplot.  There really is no getting around it.  The great novels or films or plays might do a better job at hiding the structure, making it seem spontaneous…but it’s there.

Those players–and I’m often one of them–who lament lack of compelling story in games need to be reminded that the tradeoff for a great story is lack of meaningful choice by the player.  The more choice and freedom you hand over to the player, the more you give up control over structure, pacing, emotional clarity, and coherent character development…and pretty soon, the power of your story dribbles away.  If you want to play a memorable character, one with wit, intelligence, consistency and emotional truth, that character will have to be written.  That kind of character does not arise from a series of binary choices or assigning +5 points to empathy.

A Mystery Solved

The voice was that of a pre-adolescent child, but the language spewing forth would have made the hardened criminals of “Oz” blush.  This tot’s tirade of homophobic insult, invitations to commit anatomically impossible acts, intimations of propensity for maternal intercourse, and general nastiness was answered, in kind, by an adult male whose accent placed him somewhere in the southern United States, and whose evident literacy was somewhere south of fourth grade.  That every third word was a profanity was not surprising.  What was interesting was how even monosyllabic epithets were stretched into dipthongs: fuh–uck  yeah.

Welcome to XBox Live.

I have spent hundreds of hours on Live public servers playing Call of Duty, Gears of War, and countless others and not once have I heard an in-game conversation that was free of racial or sexual insult, stupidity, or a profanity-to-speech ratio of less than 6:1.  Within the first ten minutes of the first game I ever played on Live I pulled out my headset in disgust, but it has always seemed curious that, of the millions of Live subscribers, such a high percentage would be homophobic veterans from the deep South, willing at the slightest provocation to come to my actual house and fuck me up just because I cleverly positioned the Bouncing Betty in such a way that said player would step on it.  Twelve times in a row.

But, as this post’s title implies, I may have broken this case wide open.  Hidden deep within the XBox Live system blades is an automated translator, which converts every day speech into “Live” speech.  Since the default settings are “Subliterate redneck” and “profanity every third word” it is no wonder that the level of discourse is so disappointing.

Out of curiosity I dusted off my nearly dog-destroyed Live headset and fired up a Free-for-All World at War match.  My interjections during the match were flawlessly translated.

“Oh, that sniper bested me once again” came out “I fucking hate those fucking campers.”

“Darn,” I exclaimed after missing a critical shot.  It was translated as “I say kill all the fucking Iraqis. And the faggots,” in a drawl that was pitch-perfect Gulf-coast American.

This technology is brilliant and I can only guess why the brain trust at Microsoft has not trumpeted its accomplishment.