Tag: youtube

Scoring in Roguelikes

My new favorite YouTube channel is Matthewmatosis, a collection of in-depth game reviews and commentary. In-depth means really in-depth–30+ minutes in most of the videos. One of the most recent is on Pac-Man and scoring, which explores the phenomenon of the “perfect score” in Pac-Man: something made possible by the fact that a) the game is deterministic (the ghosts’ behavior is predictable and reliable), and b) the game has a finite number of a levels (not by design–but an integer overflow enforces this).

So for Pac-Man, there really is just a perfect score to attain, and the leaderboard shifted to who could do it the fastest. But there is actually a fastest-possible time as well, if you execute everything perfectly. So now it’s just an account of people who can attain the fastest time to the highest score.

Matthewmatosis offers a solution in the form of two missing ingredients: randomness, and unlimited time. They are both required, however, because random game elements (such as Tetris or a roguelike) combined with limited time means that top scorers are mostly at the mercy of the random number generator for a good score. And unlimited time without randomness turns the game into an endurance test, rather than a skill test.

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First Prototype Complete

Victory lap time. I am right on track with my week’s goal of a playable prototype. It came at the cost of some tremendously ugly code, but I hacked together a playable demo that gives a solid impression of what the game will become.

The whole procedural level thing was an experiment. I built this prototype to prove the concept to myself–and I think it really works. This is is going to bring the ground combat of Soulcaster to a new level.  See for yourself:

Continue reading First Prototype Complete

Red Mage Style: Music Direction

What is Music Direction?

Music direction is picking which songs the game needs. How long they are, how they’re used in the game, and what style/mood they will have. The goal is to set up the soundtrack to influence the mood of the game.

For example, in Escape Goat, I wanted the game to have a serious tone to counterbalance the game’s title, so I picked a lot of darker stuff as reference songs.

If you don’t know where to start, try this:

The Fake Playlist Method

  1. Brainstorm and make a list of a dozen songs that might work well with your game. Pick a variety of tempos, moods and genres.
  2. Collect mp3’s of these songs (if you can find them on YouTube, you can get the mp3… Google it)
  3. Make a playlist in iTunes or Windows Media Player
  4. Play your game while the playlist is playing. Skip around from song to song, and notice how each song affects each scene.

That’s it! You’ll have a short list of tracks that work well, and you can probably describe in a few words what makes them work.

Here’s a video that demonstrates this process:

I’ve used this technique dozens of times when scoring games. When it comes to tracking music production, I love spreadsheets. All you need are these columns: Cue name, Target Length, Actual Length, Reference, Notes (for reworks–which should be minimized with this practice).

Have fun!