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The Soda Dispenser

February 13, 2010 / posted in Humor, Philosophy, Tools / 2 Comments

Soda Dispenser

When working on tools or any software in general really; it’s important to remember not to over engineer or attempt to solve problems that don’t exist.

I was walking through the grocery store last night and happened across this glorious feat of over engineering.  The Soda Dispenser.

It’s a device that you screw on to the top of a soda bottle, shake the bottle and then the resulting pressure forces the liquid up through a plastic tube that’s inserted into the bottle.  You then simply press the button at the top to release the liquid.

This is definitely an attempt to solve a problem that simply doesn’t exist and their solution is terrible.  After you get about half way through the bottle, I imagine there wont be enough pressure to force a lot of liquid out.  At around 25% almost nothing will come out and you’ll have to resort to unscrewing the Soda Dispenser and pouring your carbonated beverage into a glass like a cave man.

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I <3 The Vitality Sensor

June 3, 2009 / posted in Game Industry, Philosophy / 1 Comment

The Wii Vitality Sensor was just announced at E3 and I’m thrilled. I’ve wanted this type of peripheral for a long time. Think of what knowing the heart rate of a player can tell you.

Finally when playing that horror game you can round that corner have a zombie jump out at you; struggling, you attempt to shoot the zombie in the head. But oh crap, your heart is pounding and you’re having trouble focusing, the music becomes darker, faster, a specially tuned shader starts to blur the screen.

In the case of an action game, higher heart rate becomes a sign that the user is getting into the game, the music starts to get louder, the darkened area begins to light up, a shader starts to brighten enemies to make their bodies form become more obvious against the background, maybe even time slows down just a bit.

Now you’re a spy and you’re trying your best to sneak around. But your heart is pounding and your character is having trouble keeping his breathing pattern normal.

Its the last quarter of the game, the clock is counting down. You line up the shot and let fire. Your heart is pounding, adrenalin is rushing through your body, and it was just enough. An increased heart rate gets translated into an extra 5% chance to make that shot, and swish, you win by a point.

I hope one day this becomes standard on controllers, as natural as the start button. It would be easy to integrate to a typical controller if it functioned like the metallic heart senors you see on the handles of a treadmill.

360 Mockup

360 Mockup

Well, I can dream anyway.

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Of Users and Tools Developers

April 23, 2009 / posted in Game Industry, Philosophy, Tools / No Comments

Was reading one of the feature articles over at Gamasutra Custom Tools: Environment Artists and Game Editors. Was a good read; from my experience I would have to agree with a lot of the article. But I think the author just begins to scratch the surface.

One of the big reasons a level editor takes such a long time to create is the number of things it has to be to so many people. It’s the one of a very few tools you will likely find an artist, designer and programmer all using. Which complicates matters because all 3 groups each look to the tool to solve different problems. Programmers will likely want it to be responsible for baking as much data as it can for the runtime, since it’s generally the last tool in the pipeline for a game, making it naturally well suited for the task.

A designer may look to the tool for it’s data management capabilities; They may need to setup a very complicated quest chain with all sorts of interactions between NPCs, how does the tool provide them with visualizations of interactions and the ability to manage and search a vast database of generated content to find out what they need to know about the world/level.

Artists should be obvious, but in addition to the aesthetic side of things one of the biggest pitfalls you can fall into is their desire to be able to move seamlessly between their DCC tool of choice and your level editor. Which means giving them the ability to make as much of the tool share the same workflow shortcuts they are used to. ex, key binding shortcuts, 3d manipulation gizmos, camera controls…etc.

Tools development is not for the faint of heart :)

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