Building a better bot

Other than the winners of the Nullarbor contest the other big announcement from the Perth IGDA meeting was that of the The 2K Bot Prize.

ECU’s Philip Hingston took the stage to tell us about the comp to build a better bot.

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Nullarbor 2008 Prizes

It was a great pleasure last night to hand out the prizes to this year’s Nullarbor winners. The standard of the games this year was outstanding and it is a credit to everyone involved that due to the incredibly high quality, we had the closest results ever.

This year we also decided to have a judges prize, which we awarded to Jack Casey (aka Beetlefeet) for his outstanding game “LadyBug” (video, game). I’m sure his prize — a copy of Maya Unlimited from Autodesk — will be very helpful in crafting next year’s entry!

The music prize was also very close, with fewer entries but all of them very nigh quality. Congratulations and $250 narrowly went to Simon Whitber (Nxus7) for his winning entry, beating out the competition by just 1 point. The final results were:

As I mentioned, the people’s choice voting was the closest it has ever been, with only 3 points (potentially just one vote) separating the top 3 games.

Nullarbor Game Prize Results
Position	Screenshot	Title/Developer	Points	Links
1		Buttons’ Grand Adventures ECU ML Red Team ‘08	43	Game Video
2		The War of Art AH,MD,SM	42	Game Video
3		Morning Star Peter Alexander	40	Game Video
4		Ladybug Beetlefeet	38	Game Video
5		Thrust Harder Kransky Bros	24	Game
6		The Things NoTime	20	Game Video
7		Super Jesus Twelve Productions	19	Game Video
8		Space Pirates First Empire	19	Game Video
9		Retrovector Brad Power	18	Game
10		Column Breaker OneTwentyThree	11	Video

What is Digital Content?

This morning I was asked to describe or list the areas that the term Digital Content means to me. I immediately rolled off a list of areas but obviously any list like this is going to be somewhat arbitrary.  For example I tend not to include web content, although I can think of several web projects that clearly do fit.  The defining or unifying concept that I see behind the term is convergence, so for me Digital Content is that which is most converged at this moment. Web & Audio are good examples where much of the digital aspect has diffused back into the wider economy (who even talks about tape recorders?).  Obviously I’m coming from a game perspective though, so in the interests of transparency, I thought I would post my list here for discussion:

• Game Development
  • PC/Console, Handheld, Online, Casual, Phone, MMO…
• Animation
  • Game, TV, Movie, Web, Advertising, Visualisation
  • Flash, 3D, Keyframe, MoCap
• Simulation at various levels of fidelity
  • Entertainment, Familiarisation, Training, Scientific, Visualisation, Military
• Edutainment
  • Entertainment, Training, Teaching
• Interactive Art

Jason Della Rocca Coming to Perth

Jason Della Rocca, Executive Director of the IGDA, is coming to Perth on the 13th of November. We’ll be announcing at least one more event for while he’s here but for the moment, why don’t you plan on coming over the the next IGDA Perth Meeting at the Velvet Lounge (Flying Scotsman Pub, cnr Beaufort and Walcott St, Mt Lawley) starting at 7pm. Jason will present “At Least 10 Reasons Why the Game Industry Doesn’t Suck”.

In addition, you can win prizes (including an Xbox 360, latest release games, speaker kits and more) from our generous sponsors - Anyware Computers, Crumpler Bags, Epic Games, Game traders, Microsoft, One Stop Entertainment and GO3 Electronic Entertainment Expo – and meet your new Perth chapter of IGDA committee members!

IGDA Perth Chapter Committee

I’ve been nominated as the Chairman of the Perth Chapter of the IGDA and just gave a little mini-speech at the chapter meeting a few hours ago trying to let everyone know what I thought the Association means. It was all a bit off-the-cuff as I had to run to catch a flight moments later, but the main points I wanted to make is that, to me, the IGDA is a really important body that both directly and indirectly (just by existing and encouraging discussions) helps to develop:

• The Community,
• The Profession and
• The Industry.

Obviously, just building the community was the first step and we need to continue to consolidate the gains we have made on that front. All of us getting together every month to talk a bit about what we’re all doing, with both the formal presentations as well as informally over a few drinks, is a really good thing. It’s incredibly important that this regular forum exists and continues to grow, that the IGDA remains relevant to all of the developers in Perth and actively welcomes new members.

As the community develops I think it would be great if we can also start to do a little bit more professional development as well. I’m keen to hear what interest there might be in a series of more technical seminars that are designed to develop and expand skills in a more specific manner than we are doing at the moment. This would be entirely separate from the existing meetings, which I don’t think should change in any substantial manner. I imagine these technical seminars being conducted on a range of topics but each presentation would dig deeper, assume a more specialised interest, last longer and might feature international or interstate speakers via video conference.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my thoughts on what the IGDA meant to me. I’m more than happy to answer any specific questions that people might have, in the comments or by email.

IGDA Online Games Quarterly

An interview I did for the Online Games SIG publication:

The Tools of the Trade: An Interview with Robert Spencer

Robert Spencer is Strategic Business Manager for BigWorld. Formerly a Producer at Café Nova and before that Publisher of PC Games Plus, Robert has been actively involved in the MMO space for five years and the games industry in general since 1989. BigWorld the company has been developing BigWorld the Technology Suite for more than six years and currently has 45 licenses for titles that are under development on every continent except Antarctica. For more info, see http://www.bigworldtech.com.

The in-house development of a robust, scalable MMOG engine is likely to be the most costly line item of any MMOG development budget - both in terms of time and money. Big World is one company offering an alternative to in-house development. The company provides a suite of integrated Client, Server and Art Tools designed specifically for the creation of MMOG. We spoke with Robert Spencer, Strategic Business Manager for the company to find out more.

1. Tell us a little about what your company is doing to facilitate the development of MMOG.
   

   Robert Spencer: The BigWorld Technology Suite provides a solid, dependable platform upon which studios can produce MMOGs. ‘BigWorld’ has been licensed for use in over forty five games at the time of writing. Our success in the market place is based on a real dedication to the ongoing development of excellent technology that solves real-world game problems. MMOG producers now have a real alternative to the option of attempting the time-consuming, expensive and technologically risky development of their own server technology, tools & client engine.

   BigWorld licensees find they reduce risk, costs and time to market. They also gain access to world-leading MMO technology. Our server technology, client engine and complete content production pipeline allows the production team to start working on their game from day one, which beyond the obvious implications in terms of cost and time to market also enables the game to be played so much earlier in the development cycle. This fast prototyping enables design decisions to be evaluated quickly and enables numerous iterations to refine game play. An iterative production methodology is encouraged within our content pipeline, with our world building tools allowing fast prototyping of spaces prior to the addition of detailed objects that flesh out the world to the standards required in current-generation and next-generation MMOGs.

   This rapid prototyping and iterative design reduces waste, as risky ideas can be tried and developed or discarded, mistakes corrected and game play refined without throwing away development effort.

2. What are the major pitfalls a developer has to watch out for in the development of MMOG from a technology stand point?
   

   RS: Testing! Clearly, an MMOG server is a very complex piece of technology, but as the market matures, reliability and robustness are going to be requisite properties of ‘Triple-A’ MMOG. Server crashes and even planned outages will cost real money and market share, as players move to games that they can play more reliably. It is very difficult for even large MMOG studios to perform the enormous battery of tests to ensure that their underlying technology will work flawlessly, never mind testing the game code that runs on top of the server and client. By licensing a proven technology platform, developers have a huge head start with developing a successful game.Too many MMOGs are still developed without sufficient planning and infrastructure for technology and game play upgrades. Given the planned life of an MMOG, transparent upgrades must be expected during game play. BigWorld assists developers with this problem in several ways; we have a very sophisticated transparent update system on the client and server (a GM can even change the AI of a monster while a player is actually fighting it!); we are constantly updating, upgrading and extending the BigWorld Technology Suite (we released version 1.6 just before E3 this year) and Licensees can often get exciting new features to add to their games at no additional cost, reducing their ongoing development costs while remaining on the leading edge.

3. Don’t you think that using middleware limits the creativity of the development team?
   

   RS: Quite the opposite! The BigWorld Technology architecture has been developed to provide game producers with the flexibility to develop whatever massively multiplayer game they can imagine. We tend to liken the BigWorld server platform to an operating system; it reduces the complexity but still allows the developer to create startlingly innovative games. BigWorld also allows the game development team to concentrate on their game, freeing their mind and budget to solve game design problems instead of issues with technology and tools. Licensees of BigWorld are currently using the Technology Suite to develop MMOAS (action shooters), MMOFPS (first person shooters) and MMORTS (real time strategy), along with classic fantasy, contemporary and science fiction MMORPGs, proving that it is a very flexible and adaptable system.

4. What do you think the ideal hardware infrastructure is for MMO?
   

   RS: In general, the more scalable and manageable, the better. Obviously, there are cost trade-offs that are possible for smaller games and we have Licensees that are using everything from stacks of 1U pizza boxes to sophisticated blade systems. As our server software takes care of fault tolerance and load balancing, there is no need for exotic hardware or “highly available” systems but it is obviously preferable for games to be on reliable equipment. Partnering with a reliable hosting provider that maintains connectivity and fast hardware repairs is also an important consideration.

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