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October 25, 2006

Meeting Report: Wednesday, September 20th, 2006

IGDA Meeting Minutes by Casey O'Donnell
Wednesday, September 23, 2006
Leo Zuniga - Designer, Vicarious Visions, speaks on Tiny Tony: Delivering Console-Quality Gameplay on a Handheld Platform

Minute Taker's Note: My brief notes on Leo's presentation cannot possibly do justice to what was packed into his presentation, but I've tried to capture some of the bullet points. If you'd like more information regarding the details of the talk, I'm sure Leo would be happy to answer them.

The meeting began with several announcements by IGDA members.

. QoL Certification Initiative - Erin Hoffman
. IGDA Tools SIG - Raquel Bujans
. Upcoming Charity Event in Cooperation with Childs Play - Ken Bowen
. The Montréal International Game Summit in November is Coming Up

Leo spent the first part of his presentation talking a bit about his start in the game industry. He talked about his transition from QA to Production Tester to Designer. After the personal history introduction, Leo focused more specifically on Tony Hawk, and the move towards, "Tiny Tony."

The goal of Tony Hawk (TH) on the handhelds was to capture the feel that makes Tony on other consoles fun, within the limitations of handhelds. Leo's first experience with this was on TH Pro Skater (THPS) 2 for the Game Boy Advance (GBA). The goal was to retain the "feel" of the original TH, and the Isometric (Iso) engine they developed for the game captured the visual fidelity they they were targeting, but they still felt that there was "something missing." They continually asked questions about what makes the game tick at it's core. What "makes it fun?" The development of a "combo line" system helped them push the game forward in new ways. While they were also busy trying to keep up with the console, this was made easier through collaboration with Neversoft, who was developing TH on the consoles.

They found that tools provided an important way for designers to spend most of their time doing level design. TNT, and internally developed editor for the ISO engine was "everything in one tool" and instrumental in their being able to deliver a high quality game within the confines of handhelds.

Leo had several guidelines for handheld developers, and in particular many were related to the development of user interface (UI) systems for games:
. Make it possible to remove unnecessary difficulty when possible. TH employed a "kid mode" that provided handling tweaks to make the game more accessible to younger or less "hard core" players.
. Go easy on the dialog.
. Make it re-playable. TH did this by adding a "classic mode" and on the DS by providing WiFi capabilities.
. Make saving friendly.
. Not everyone likes using the shoulder buttons.

Some Nintendo DS specific UI and design guidelines were also presented:
. Use big buttons. Don't require your player to be constantly pulling out the stylus just to interact with your button or menu system. Let them use their fingers.
. Is something touchable? Make it look touchable.
. Use the microphone. Kids love hearing their own voices.
. Use the WiFi, and create a community for your players.

When moving TH to the Nintendo DS, they were finally able to make the transition from the Iso engine build for the GBA to a fully 3D engine. This meant of course that the tools and pipeline had to be developed for these new processes. They found that by moving the previous system, TNT, into 3D Studio Max, many of the same design guidelines developed for the older system still held, which allowed designers to more effectively spend their time doing design work.

They broke collision and visuals into separate systems, which allowed artists to spend their time creating assets, and designers could tweak the collision setup without having to interfere with the work of artists.

With TH American Sk8land, on the DS, Tiny Tony was much closer to the console than ever. TH Downhill Jam (THDJ) on the DS was another move, which pushed the visual fidelity of Tiny Tony closer still to that of the console. THDJ required big levels, the development of an AI system, something absent on previous TH handheld games, as well as a commitment to using the WiFi as a community access point.

Leo ended his presentation with some excellent footage of THDJ for the DS.

Posted by IanStead at October 25, 2006 05:14 PM

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