SGD 111 Chapter 08, Game Development Jobs and Tools

Narrative Designer

For this assignment, I chose to look into the career path of a narrative designer.

• Responsible for creating a game's story, arcs, characters, and overall setting
• Average salary is $73,182
• Requirements: A fundamental understanding of video games, good communication and collaborative skills, organizational skills, and a creative drive
• Preferred Skills: Diploma of College Studies in scriptwriting, literature, filmmaking or video games, previous experience in the gaming industry
• Tools: Anywhere from Word and Excel files to specially designed programs for nonlinear stories

Job Listing

Portfolio

SGD 111 Chapter 07, The Game Development Pipeline

Launching Games More Than Once?

Article Used

In this article, they are talking about different ways to get an indie game more popularity and acknowledgement. They discuss "launching" a game multiple times instead of just a single, initial launch. They also talk about how to start up hype for the beginning launch of the game, such as setting money aside for advertising and starting a blog to detail the creation of the game as it's made.

The marketing director for Swedish game company Crows Crows Crows, Mike Cox, talks about how to find the best placement for your games on digital shelves for selling that will gain attention and cause you to earn better placements later. The better the placement, the more views the game gets and the more copies likely to get sold. Mike disapproves of the method normally used by indie developers to get their name out there. He sees the tactic of beginning to talk about the games through social media sites, building an influencer list, releasing a trailer, and setting up a wishlist as being "based around immediate relevance and other individuals determining worth for visibility." Mike does however support the idea of going to conventions and launching the game at a discounted price for a week. He recommends trying to maximize a successful launch through progress and data tracking, focusing on updates, sales, and availability of placements, and taking larger control of the views the product can receive by purchasing advertisements.

Mike urges that developers learn the marketing formula called CVECV, which stands for cost, views, engagement, conversions, and value. These are all things that can be calculated and there's an example of how to do so within the article. The article also includes a formula on how Crows Crows Crows calculate sales. The formulas they use can then be used to create more "launches" for your game after it's already been released. Developers can add languages to gain new placement spots, take part in large sales, announce new platforms, and build new, small updates. Though Mike admits it is a large job for a starting developer, he encourages them to look into the methods and acknowledge them as a better solution than just feeling around in the dark.

I knew already that advertising was very important for the start of any new coming developer, but I wasn't sure how much you could actually influence your game after its first release. The fact that you could revive a game after it fades out for a while just by tweaking the price and adding some small new details is amazing to me, though I can now actually recognize when things like this happen. I think this is a great way to keep an indie company relevant, despite the tough time they might have if they aren't a larger group or aren't getting sponsored for their creations. I'm glad this kind of information is available to the public like this and that larger indie companies are willing to share their marketing strategies. Overall, it seems like an extremely valid and mostly solid way of ensuring your game can live out its whole lifespan and not be completely deserted a few months after its release.

SGD 111 Chapter 06, History of Modern Video Games

Silent Hill

Published by Konami and developed by Team Silent, Silent Hill was a new step into a world of psychological horror.

The game was released on the PlayStation in 1999 to mostly positive reviews, selling over two million copies. It was later re-released on the PlayStation Store for the PSP and PlayStation 3. It is widely recognized as the first fully 3D third-person horror game, games like Resident Evil and Alone In The Dark used pre-rendered backgrounds. It used fog and darkness to hide the limitations of the hardware it was on, and even the gritty textures were highly praised for helping bring a dingy atmosphere to the game. Team Silent went on to make three more games before splitting up, but that didn't spell out the end of the franchise. Several more main games were released, along with two movies and multiple comics. The main goal of the first game was to find your daughter, Cheryl in the long abandoned town of Silent Hill. You needed to fight your way through the town and come out alive. There are multiple possibilities when it comes to winning, but the common win conditions were to just leave the town with your daughter, going through the story until you reach the end, and surviving.

Silent Hill showed that games could be made scary through intense atmospheres and in spite of hardware limitations. It utilized the DualShock controller's vibration feature for detecting enemies nearby and warning you of your health. However, the movements and camera controls were clunky and tank-like, not fit for an action game. The voice acting as well was not up to par, the timing of certain lines was . The music was anxiety inducing and fit situations perfectly in game, and the opening song has become iconic along with the series itself. Many songs are heavily mechanical sounding, like metal scraping along walls. The monster designs were creepy and unique, and in the second game the monsters became centralized around a certain theme, that being based off of our protagonist's crime and sins.

In each game, there are multiple endings, all depending on the choices you make throughout the game. There's even a joke ending in almost every game that requires special events or items to take place, such as needing completion of other endings first or finding an extremely hidden item. In the first game, they have a UFO Ending where Harry, our protagonist, meets a group of aliens and it doesn't go so well for him.

The characters you meet along the way are just as memorable as the monsters, and despite knowing that other people are in the town with you, you're always left with a feeling of isolation. You meet people like Cybil Bennett, a female cop from a neighboring town who will occasionally help you through your journey, and who you eventually have to save. You also meet poor souls like Lisa Garland, who were doomed from their very arrival into your play through.

Here's some gameplay for your viewing pleasure.