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Chronometer
Posted by Chris
on Tue Jul 08, 2008 12:29 pm |
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Introversion have a lot of game ideas. Generally speaking at any one time we have about a decades worth of game ideas queued up, in various stages of production. New ideas come up all the time and I store them all in a vault on my computer called The Bespokery. Original designs for Subversion from 2003 can be found in there, along with designs for all of Multiwinia’s game modes. Some ideas are patently ridiculous, others are wildly over-ambitious. Some ideas are incredible, and (we hope) will one day be released as finished Introversion games.
There is one document in this vault which has been edited and revised and updated more times than any other, and that document is called Chronometer.
It’s one of our more recent ideas, and was first written down during Defcon’s beta phase. I specifically remember the moment I explained it to Mark – in a KFC in London of all places, and he just stopped and stared at me while I was speaking. He genuinely couldn’t continue eating. By the time I’d finished I went back to my food and Mark just sat there silent for a few minutes before uttering “fuck me”, slowly shaking his head in disbelief.
It’s always been clear to us that it’s not a project we could ever afford to make ourselves. So the project sat there in The Bespokery all this time, a fascinating thought experiment in ambitious game design and nothing more, until Channel 4 approached Introversion and asked us if we had any game ideas we’d like funding for.
Our initial response was something along the lines of No. But the more we thought about it, the more we found Chronometer actually fitted the requirements extremely well, and their deal on offer was something we hadn't seen before. We pitched the idea to them and they approved the first exploratory phase pretty soon after.
So around three months ago, despite being busier than we’ve ever been, Introversion Software began work on its sixth game. Channel 4 funded an exploratory pre-production phase of three months work, which we have now almost completed. We spent a long time looking for a fulltime writer, and worked through nearly 50 applicants until we hit on the right guy for the job – a writer named Chris Hastings, who's sample work was a league ahead of the competition. Chris and myself have been working closely together in Cambridge during this three month period and that Chronometer document has now expanded into a whole project folder with scripts, pictures, maps, flow charts, production plans, budgets, the whole lot. We’ve spent a lot of time moving post-it notes around on a giant board, trying to piece together the structure of this new game.
Ultimately we don’t know for certain if Chronometer will be going into full production – the conditions would have to be right for Introversion and for Channel 4, although they’ve been fantastic to work with during pre-production. We’re pretty much finished with this phase of Chronometer for now, and we’ll keep you updated about this interesting sixth game project as decisions are made.
In the mean time it’s all-hands-on-deck for the impending Multiwinia launch that is bearing down on us alarmingly quickly!
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My first week @ Introversion
Posted by martinmir
on Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:12 pm |
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What can I say about my first week which may be of interest to you? Well for starters, Introversion is a very unique company, that encourages creativity. Each member of the team is as eccentric as the next with the overall similar interest of the love for games and technology. The main focus here is to work hard, and play hard then harder. This is one of the main reasons why I applied for the position here, as well as the fact I would get to witness the production of the most original games I have seen.
Moving on swiftly to the location of the Introversion office, which is predictably located in south central London. If you can imagine a Victorian style mansion terrace spread across 3 floors, which includes a basement converted into a kitchen with a passage to the secret garden. The first floor is where the magic happens, if you can picture a converted bedroom into a game designer’s high rock and a bedroom gamer’s paradise. The ground floor is where I am located with management in the next room to make sure we are all up to mischief. Outside the office close by you have two factory’s one which at one point manufactured soap which is now converted into a residential spot, and the second a working coffee factory which leaves the air smelling of Cappuccino, how sophisticated. I think the factory’s aid in generating the creative thought process which goes into making the games here as they’re so industrial. You never know we may just host the launch party for Multiwinia in a factory, please give me your thoughts in our forum.
Day 01 in the Introversion House flew by just being introduced to the motley crew and the role I would be filling as a marketing assistant. Time went so fast I was very close to not going home but then realized my other half would not be so happy. The realisation that I was working for a company that was doing something so different put a smile on my face that lasted.
On my second day I was invited with the directors and of course Vic for a meeting over lunch with some interesting mind sucking press people to discuss Introversion’s soon to be released title Multiwinia. We shared some laughs and opinionated thoughts on the industry and the future. Today was a good day! The rest of the week was pretty much the same ridiculously interesting, no seriously. Be jealous of me for having such a fun loving environment to work in.
If you want to discuss anything I will be available on the Forum. I promise to bring to the best of my ability challenging debates and conversations about everything from our games to general games to general life, an agony Uncle if you like.
On a personal note I would like to thank the Introversion team for giving me a very warm welcome and for adding me to the team.
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Tales from the front line S01E02
Posted by Byron
on Thu Jul 03, 2008 8:37 pm |
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The two opponents met in the dark and for a brief moment it appeared that decorum would be observed and that they would shake hands but they merely glowered at each other and then marched to their designated command posts. Gary and Chris were ready. Many would die today.
The tension mounted among the observers and a quite hush descended over the darkened arena as the two sides got ready to unleash hell on each other. There was no traditional tossing of the coin, no, it was decided that Gary would be launching an assault on Chris and his defences. Chris however was glowing with a vibrant confidence that today Gary would meet his match and descend into the depths of despair as his forces are slaughtered under the might of his defences.
Battle started.
For the first few minutes Gary enacted the role of a World War general and disregarding of the lives he was throwing away he piled soldier after soldier like toys against the first of Chris’s defences. The observers gasped in horror as Chris’s gun turrets unleashed metal hell on hundreds. The screams could be heard above the repeated ‘thump thump’ of the discarded shells hitting the floor. In the front row of the observers La Grande Fromage began to convulse as he could no longer hold back the tears at the sheer horror of what was unfolding in front of him. Chris and Gary were oblivious to all this and could be heard boasting and laughing as they continued on with their macabre show. Throughout all of this Chris gave a running commentary – seemingly oblivious to the lives he was extinguishing by the second.
Eventually Chris’s first line of defence fell under the sheer weight of numbers. Amazingly the screams and bodies of the dead appeared to bolster Gary’s forces and they forged ahead onto the second line of defence which to the gasps of shock from the observers turned out to a flame thrower turret – a weapon long since banned from most civilised countries. To make matters worse Chris zoomed in on the kill counter to show the number of lives claimed by the flames, which seemed to emanate from hell itself. From the glow on Chris’s face we could have sworn this was his proudest moment. Gary, determined not to be defeated, pushed even harder on his forces in an attempt to crush Chris’s hell hounds.
A look of shock crossed across Chris’s face as his second line of defence fell and Gary’s forces marched like a legion of possessed demons onto the final line and the target itself. By this time the observers had become numb to the entire killing and to some extent became emotionally involved in the outcome. Would Chris pull off a miracle and manage to defeat the storm that was headed his way? Would Gary show any mercy?
The commentary from Chris turned to despair as the horde took down the last of the turrets one by one and then the target. He made light of it but you could tell that inside he was a broken man. Finally with the turrets down Gary’s forces triumphantly marched onto the target and blew it to hell.
Okay, it may not have happened exactly as I depicted there but you know what, it is damned close. The battle took place to demo Multiwinia to the guys from IGN. We set up the development room to show the game from Chris’s point of view through the projector onto the wall and then closed the blinds and turned off the lights. The show was amazing and I am totally convinced that everyone should get a projector to play the game. The particular game mode being shown was a new one that had previously not been shown in public before. Chris and Gary paired off because out of all of us they are the best at playing the game. The game rocks dudes and when it comes out in September you are not going to stop playing it so kiss goodbye to your loved ones because you are not going to see them for a long time.
Back on the development front, I had a bit of a breakthrough today and got spectator mode working on both the client and server. I was able to watch a four-player game using only AI teams. All I need to do now is make sure all the UI paths work and get this mode totally tested so that it can make the Gold Master deadline. It turned out that getting this mode up and running was a lot simpler than anyone anticipated because of the way the game deals with teams and clients. It’s unlike any network system I had come across before but it works really well and is an elegant scalable solution. Going to have to be careful now because I am going to want to code all future network solutions in this way, which is fine while I am employed by Introversion ☺
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Tales from the front line
Posted by Byron
on Wed Jun 18, 2008 6:34 pm |
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In every project there is always one file that strikes fear into the hearts of all programmers everywhere. These files are usually full of code that could render a battle-hardy coder to complete gibbering tears within seconds and that is just for looking at it – if they have to make changes to the file then they usually make their farewell calls to their loved ones, have a swift drink of something to bolster their courage and run into the battlefield screaming as they go. Somewhere in the world is an honour monument to those who fell.
Today it’s my turn. When I joined the Multiwinia team I was told mythic tales of this particular file and like a fool I sat back in my mis-guided confidence and boldly said ‘it can’t be that bad’. Around me I could see the looks on my fellow coders faces that said they felt sorry for my wife, as I was not long for this world. They shook their heads in sorrow and patted me on my back while in the corner a coder was shaking and sobbing every now and then – I was to learn later that he was actually in the file and desperately trying to call in the support copters to get him out ASAP. There’s not much help the others can give him – he just has to brave it out and hope he lives to tell the stories over the campfire while he sips his well earned beer and not forgetting to take the sedatives the doctor game him to calm his nerves.
Even mentioning the name of this file is a curse so brace yourselves:
Game_menu.cpp
Still there? Check those dark corners you never know if its there waiting to pounce out on you!
Game_menu.cpp isn’t a large file, it’s the Cthulhu of all code files. It currently weighs in at 9765 lines of C++ code and lots of classes. Unlike a lot of Cthulhu files the code in this one is not bad code, there’s just a lot of it and a few of those classes don’t take prisoners. Why is this file so large you might ask? The answer is simple – evolution. Early on in a game project decisions are made as to the route you may go down in order to achieve a working solution to a known problem, in this case it’s the game menu system, or the bunch of buttons you have to wade through in order to play the game. It’s not always easy to see all of the consequences that seemingly simple decisions makes down the line. In previous companies some of the designers used to make small off-hand requests for a feature that results in 2000+ lines of code and when it was finished they decided they hated anyway. Game_menu.cpp has a really good concept at its heart and had to evolve that concept in order to cope with the demands of Multiwinia. Unless you have lots of time on your hands and also a lot of money most games companies do the smart thing and re-use code. This means that as a coder it’s your job to go through some really ancient (2 weeks old) code and re-factor it so that it does the new job at hand. In Multiwinia it meant bolting on the new menu layout and all the UI code to handle the multiplayer aspect. The end result is a beautiful swan on the outside and a pair of ugly feet paddling like crazy under the surface. That’s our job though – make the ugly bits so that they can power the pretty bits for you the player.
UI in games is usually one of the most hated areas of code and given to the juniors to do because nobody else wants to do it. I always feel that this is a stupid reaction to what has to be one of the most important features of your game, for instance, can you think of any game you played that made it so difficult for you to actually get to the game because of an un-intuitive UI flow that you actually considered or indeed did give up on the game? I know I have. A prime example of this is the online multiplayer section of Halo 3, which is too painful for words when you first encounter it (well, I thought so anyway). The real reason it’s hated though is that anybody can have an opinion on the UI and during the development process if one person hates it then it usually leads to a re-design which in most cases means a re-code too (sorry, these days we call that a re-factor).
The reason I have to brave into the murky realms of Game_menu.cpp is that I am now working on putting a spectator mode into Multiwinia. What this means is that like Defcon if you join a full game then chances are if you really want to and the host lets you – you can watch the game. This is also useful for tournaments so that we can set up the host computer to be a spectator only and judge who the winner really was. This is where coding gets to be fun as to do this I pretty much need to know how the whole UI, gameplay and networking systems interact with each other and more importantly how not to screw it up. It’s a great responsibility doing this type of modification as it goes straight to the core of the whole Multiwinia experience and if I check in dodgy code right now it means anybody who does an update will either have to roll-back to a known working version or take a break until I fix it. I’ll let you know how I get on.
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