Chris Kolmatycki

Winter Olympics,

The ceremony is good,

The rest hurts T.V.

As a Game Designer, there is one skill that trumps all others in importance. The skill of communication is absolutely invaluable when dealing with all facets of a game’s life cycle. How do you want the soccer players to move following a cross into the box? Should the Carolina Hurricanes play the trap more often than other teams? Do the enemies have a high skill in using lead pipes? If they do, does it follow that they can use similar blunt objects just as well? As a designer, you should know the answer to these questions and why they are so.

There are many different components of a team (art, design, programming, etc.) and as teams often shuffle from project to project, not all members are educated in how things have worked in the past or, given something like a sports game, work in the real world. A programmer’s job is to create the vision of the designer and work around problems and bugs in order to do so.

In the example of a baseball game, the average person would likely not understand the in depth strategy of defensive shifts and fielder positioning. It is not a programmer’s job (though it would be extremely welcome and beneficial) to discern that since Ryan Howard is naturally a pull hitter, the CPU should move their fielders to the right side of the field. What they need to be able to do, is program the CPU to do that after the designer has properly communicated and explained that fact. The programmer can worry about how they wish to develop a system to determine how the defense plays for certain players.

Perhaps, even with a properly communicated explanation of why Ryan Howard pulls the ball when he hits, and why the fielders would want to adjust for that, the programmer could set up a system that, given certain attributes, can provide defensive shifts for other players such as Jim Thome or David Ortiz. Taking it a step further, if they are aware of other resources such as batter spray charts, the programmer could facilitate a script wherein the designer could create a criteria for when an AI ‘manager’ would call for his players to perform a defensive shift. This could go miles in establishing both a way of establishing manager ratings, AI, and even offensive player tendencies.

The point is, the greatest ideas mean nothing if you can’t communicate them effectively.  Though everyone thinks of communicating their ideas to an audience, people rarely seem to think about how they can communicate their ideas to the people responsible for building the game.  What do I suggest (strictly my opinion) for people trying to get into design?  Take some English or communications courses.  The skills of oral and written communication are always in high demand.

Getting Your Values Straight

To follow-up on my previous posting, it’s important to remember that a game with mass-market appeal, can still be a great game. An important part of what I do as a game designer, is the ability to not just know what is fun for myself, but to know what is fun for other people. Can you create a game that you don’t find challenging, but your target market will? Can you create a game that provides a playing experience that your grandmother would rather have, than yourself? In my opinion, you need to be able to answer ‘Yes’ to these questions in order to be a versatile designer.

As I had mentioned in my previous posting, there are several types of games I would absolutely love to see designed and created. With that said, I’m completely aware that the feasibility of these products simply are not there. I may love my baseball GM simulator, business sims, and point n click adventures, but the fact is that consumers (including even myself) seem to love their sports games, first person shooters, and party games. If I were designing a baseball game for myself, I would love to see the ability to demote and promote prospects through various levels (careful not to run out of options!) and participate in the rule 5 draft. The fact is though, you don’t always get to design games for yourself. Sometimes, you design games for people who want to take their Wii Remote, swing for the fences, and hit a home run that causes the scoreboard to explode.

It’s important to know your market and be aware that you’re not the only one who plays games. Always be aware of your market and, most importantly, make a game that’s fun. Just because you don’t always like what your market likes, doesn’t mean you can’t understand them and give them what they want. To the ‘hardcore gamer’, grab a copy of that ‘casual game’ that’s been dominating the sales charts and give it a play. You’ll better understand the direction that games are heading, and who knows, you may even have fun.

One of the largest misconceptions people seem to have is that a great idea will land them a job in the video game industry. While there are a multitude of reasons wrong with that, one common problem I’ve seen is that people design games for themselves, not everyone else. While every so often you get lucky in having your own personal tastes directly lined up with everyone else’s, that’s not always the case.

In fact, great ideas can be a dime a dozen in the gaming world. It can’t be emphasized enough how not only a great idea is needed, but great market research, and proper implementation. I’ve experienced first hand that in our studio of about 100, there have been several awesome ideas…games I think I’d love to play. What many don’t realize is that there’s a bigger picture than, “Is the game fun?”. Studios, especially independent ones, can be made or broken on their releases. On more than one occasion, the poor sales of a single title have been enough to bring down a studio.

What is more important than simply having a ‘great idea’, is doing some market research into what people are currently playing, who your market is, and can your market sustain your product. Wow, it’s almost as if the sexy world of video games is the same as every other product. You may have come up with a way to make the best hang-gliding simulator game in the world, but how many people are going to pony up the cash to make the effort worthwhile and justify the cost of production and publication?

One of my favourite games of all time has been Trevor Chan’s Capitalism 2. In a world of First Person

Shooters dominating the marketplace, it takes very careful production and marketing to develop a new idea. Would gamers today appreciate the ability to play in a near fully functional economic playground? Would they appreciate the ability to dominate the world by cornering the global markets of strawberries and motorcycles, playing the stock market, or becoming the next Best Buy? Maybe they would. But would they still be interested once they learned that every aspect from the quality of their engines (influenced of course by the training of the staff in their factories or that of the factories they’ve sourced production out to, and the quality of steel being used), the distance of the engine factory to the motorcycle assembly plant, and even the economic impact of the city they’re selling in, affects their success? I think you’ve just cut a significant part of your market out.

With that said, some people absolutely adore that kind of control. The concept and idea of Capitalism is absolutely amazing, but it definitely does not have the mass market appeal. As such, a game such as this would likely only see the light of day if its production were kept extremely tight and a smart budget were developed. While I was unable to find sales figures on the critically acclaimed title, I can’t imagine it had sold the amount that other genres have.

Conversely, looking at the Call of Duty franchise, specifically Call of Duty 4, we have a game that has sold over 10 million units. How many people enjoy shooting? How many enjoy saving the world and killing terrorists? Well, judging by the sales numbers, many many people. A franchise like COD can afford to have more polish put into it.

Being a large fan of COD4, I also take note that the game itself isn’t that ground-breaking a game. The game is definitely scripted gameplay at its finest, but it is indeed just that…scripted gameplay. The story is amazing and engrossing, they do a fine job of immersing you into the game world, and the game mechanics are solid. COD 4 doesn’t challenge the user to solve puzzles using time shifting mechanics, become Liberty City’s most wanted in a near-completely open world, or become an entrepreneur in a fully comprehensive economic climate. It does something simple and ordinary in an absolutely amazing and stunning way.

By no means is this a shot at the COD series, but it is akin to listening to Pop music vs. Classical, an Art Exhibit or a 3D Eye Painting, or Ballet vs. a Striptease. They’re all entertainment, but some have far more mass appeal than the other.

Now more than ever, games aren’t just for gamers. They’re for everyone. I’ve seen some amazing ideas fall by the wayside due to the fact that not nearly enough people would appreciate them to justify the cost of production (I’m looking at you, point and click adventures). It’s a shame that this is the case, but it’s difficult to put developers and publishers at fault for wanting to ensure their own survival. In my opinion, the most important thing for a game to do is create fun. If you can’t create a fun experience for the people who vote with their wallet, no amount of ‘revolutionary design’ can make up for your failure.

I think I’ve finally pinpointed the reason for my lack of blogging.  While the rest of the world has gone about specializing and finding a niche within the world, I’ve spent my time trying to learn a little about everything.  While this has opened my world up to being able to interact with people from many walks of life and communicate very effectively, it’s also proved to be a double edged sword in my attempt to obtain any form of expertise or specialization.

Given this, I’ve never felt like I could offer the Internet anything better than what already exists.  The original intent of this blog was to migrate away from my putting my random musings and personal events up for the world to see, and actually talk about something meaningful and interesting.  In this case, I was hoping to talk about my passion for the sport of baseball and my career in video games.  Unfortunately, my passion for the sport of baseball statistics is not enough to overcome my shortcomings in my inability to actually perform the calculations necessary to create my own statistical analysis.  Sites such as The Hardball Times do a better job of statistical analysis than I ever could and there are enough quality baseball blogs to keep the world happy for a long time.  Even my small market Blue Jays have a near-saturated blogosphere.

While I love playing games, problem solving, finding creative solutions to mundane problems, and all the things that are required in a Game Designer, I still feel too green to comfortably critique and share my experience with the masses.  Perhaps several released titles down the road, I can always return to share what I’ve learned…but until then, it’s probably better for all if I keep quiet on the matters.  That said, I’m sure people can learn from inexperience just as well as experience…

There is also the possibility that I am not lacking a niche at all, but that I have just not correctly identified it.  Instead of sharing expertise in a few areas, maybe my competitive advantage is being able to share my random thoughts with the world.  I’ll try that direction for a while.  May God have mercy on your soul.

Through my daily perusal of the Internets, I came across a rather interesting Flash game at Mazapan. In Metro Rules of Conduct, the objective is to use the arrow keys to “look” at interesting things on the subway such as mp3 players, scarves, cell phones, and ties…without having anyone make eye contact and see you.

Created as a tongue in cheek response to the anti-social behavior that occurs on the Stockholm Metro, I’m sure that any public transit commuter can empathize with the awkwardness experienced when a busy subway forces you to sit next to a stranger or the almost instinctual action of looking around at interesting things like reading magazines or books over someone’s shoulder or sneaking a peek at someone playing on their hand-held video game.

I think the game is a hilarious commentary on what we all (well maybe it’s just me) do in mass transit wherein it appears making eye contact is truly an act similar to that of death. I had flashbacks of the TTC from my Toronto days…though it may do me well to start playing this in light of my impending vacation back home.

University and Beyond

There’s not much to mention about my video gaming life in University. Now in Halifax, I couldn’t very well bring up all my systems (especially in my little dorm room). I had a PS2 that fulfilled my needs throughout my Bachelor of Commerce and it did the trick. A lot of my first year could easily be divided into the 3 games played after dinner. The Star Wars: Battlefront months, the Super Smash Bros. Melee months, and the DotA months. By 4th year (having moved into an apartment after 1st year), I had managed to slowly bring my TG 16 and (what was now my) Atari 2600 from Toronto. I now had a multi-tap and 3 controllers for the TG 16 and played Bomberman just about any time there were more than 3 people in the apartment. There was a time Keith and I logged about 5 hours of consecutive Bomberman time during the Summer of 3rd year. With the advent of Rock Band, it was not long before Bomberman was replaced as the de facto multiplayer game of the household.

Having realized that my dream (and as far as I’m concerned, the dream of anyone who played video games as a child) of being a video game guy (read: designer) wasn’t going to happen, I figured I needed to prepare for a career in something else. Not sure what to do, I decided to go into my next interest, Commerce, and bank on the fact that everything has a business aspect to it. The theory being that I could find my way into the company I wanted to work for by entering through the business side. Progressing through academics, extra curriculars, and internships, I learned more about what I didn’t want to do, than what I wanted to do. My favourite business-related activities at the time were brainstorming entrepreneurial and business ideas with friends, but without any solid and respectable experience to back it up, I’d have a tough time being a new-grad consultant.

Upon graduation, I headed back to Toronto with the hopes of finding work. As a graduation gift for myself, I purchased an Xbox360 (which I also have no attachment to), After a few possible prospects drying up, a standing offer from an Investment and Insurance firm to work as an adviser (read: salesman), a standing offer to work as an equity day trader, I came across a job posting for a Nova Scotian game company, HB-Studios. Realizing that this was once my dream, I applied to the position of Game Designer. I was incredibly impressed with the company’s portfolio, what was being said about them, their facilities, and was eager to remain in Nova Scotia. After completing the company Game Designer test and going through a phone interview (I was still in Toronto), I was lucky enough to be invited back for an in person interview at the studio. It’s now been 4 months and I love having the opportunity to brainstorm, problem solve, and create. There’s still lots to learn, but I’m up to the task. And my TurboGrafX-16? It’s still close by, hooked up to the TV at my desk.

The Later Earlier Years

It was around this time our family upgraded from our old DOS PC to a system capable of running a Windows OS. Not just any Windows OS…Windows 95. I was ballin’ now. Playing Demo CDs pilfered from my uncle’s library, being introduced to the wonders of the Maxis Sim games, making shortcuts of everything so I could change the icons, I was in heaven. I could now properly play LucasArts and the Dune adventure games on my home computer and not have to exercise extreme amounts of patience in playing bit by bit whenever I was at my uncle’s. I must’ve played (at least the demo) of nearly everything that was out around that time. Fond memories of that first video card upgrade my dad got for it that allowed me to run my newly purchased Spycraft (by Activision).

It was also around this time that Andrew and I used to go over to my place after school and watch It’s Alive! every day and check to see if the entries we sent in for their daily Panasonic 3DO drawing had any success. We never won…but hey…the shows were good. Maybe it was for the better too as looking back on it, I don’t know why we were so enthralled. Maybe it was the cut scenes or Road Rash…but I’m glad we avoided that pitfall.

After saving up enough money, I scoured every week’s Buy and Sell magazine after my dad finished with them. Eventually, I found a guy selling the Nintendo 64, 4 controllers, a memory card, a rumble pack, and 5 games (Mario 64, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, WCW vs. nWo: World Tour, Goldeneye, Mario Kart 64) for $350. Being in love with Fighting Force for the Playstation, it was a tough choice to go to the N64, but one I do not regret at all. Goldeneye soon became my game of choice and I spent a lot of time totally owning my friends. After that, I decided to give World Tour a try, only to have it totally rope me into following wrestling until about Grade 10. By the end of the N64’s life span, I owned every WCW wrestling game (unfortunately including Mayhem…so bad) and WWF: No Mercy. My verdict? Every wrestling game AKI/THQ made for the 64 was pure gold. I can probably trace my religious following of pro wrestling to the beginning and ending of the span of AKI/THQ wrestling games.

After having played the N64 for quite some time past its “death”, I was lucky enough to have my entire family pitch together to get me a PS2. Honestly, it was a great system, and I had a lot of great times with it, but it really didn’t give me the warm fuzzies and amazing memories of my other systems. I was in high school now and it seemed like there were way more important things going on than video games. It’s not that I didn’t play the system very often (believe me I did…being able to play Time Crisis from my bed was amazing), but reflecting upon my time with the system doesn’t evoke the same nostalgia that I get from my other video game memories. The PS2 (and every system after that) just seemed like a machine that played games. As such, I don’t really have any special memories of the system other than I’ve gotten a LOT of play time out of it, still playing to this day. The only real emotion I think I can get out of it is that it followed me through high school, university, and as a recent graduate, always reliable for a good time.

Part 1: The Early Years

The Early Years

Introduced to video games by my uncle at a very early age, I’d spend countless hours punching LOAD “*”,8,1 into his Commodore and playing endless hours of Choplifter, Donald Duck’s Playground, Beach-Head, and Summer Games. Soon it was off to his Mattel Intellivision and playing The Dreadnought Factor, Shark! Shark! (God what an amazing game), and Baseball. When it got too cold to play games in the basement, it was off upstairs to play some Atari 2600 (a system now sitting next to my TV as I write this). Just as back then, I still play Keystone Kapers, Jungle Hunt (I maintain the cannibal is quite possibly the hardest boss ever), Boxing, Pole Position (An Epic commercial for its time), and Pete Rose Baseball (Easily my best baseball game experience until the mid to late 90s).

It wasn’t long (actually it took a really long time) before I realized I was playing systems and games manufactured before I was even born. PC gaming with nearly all early Apogee titles, as well as other titles like Fairy Godmother, Navy SEAL, and Ninja Gaiden II (I won’t even mention the Tetris knockoff, NYET), on the family 286 wasn’t cutting it either. Though I can’t put my finger on the exact date, sometime in the early 90s I came into possession of a TurboGrafX-16. I remember my dad came home out of the blue and there it was along with Keith Courage in Alpha Zones and Bomberman (I stand firm the TG16 version is the greatest incarnation).

With my first proper console to call my own, I spent every birthday and Christmas hoping to get more games. Though my collection never expanded beyond about 10 games, Darkwing Duck on the TG16 was the first proper game I can remember actually completing. Complete with memories of trips to Toys R Us to buy more games, that was my first true warm fuzzy moment with video games. To this day, buying a video game just doesn’t seem right without having to take a slip from a sleeve below a video game box cover and giving it to a CSR in a cage at the front of the store and waiting for them to get your game.

Unfortunately, within a short time of my receiving the system (or possibly before I even received the system), NEC discontinued support and the games dried up. I speculate it was picked up second hand, but I still love it just the same. With that, my parents came through in the year of what I want to say was 1993 one Christmas morning with gifts of a generic 35mm camera (which lasted many years before breaking) and a Sega Game Gear. This marked the first time I had a system that was fairly current. I took that thing everywhere, going as far to own about 4 sets of battery packs, that magnifying attachment to make the screen ‘bigger’, the suitcase, the tote bag, a link cable I never used, and more games than I can name. I got countless amounts of game play out of that thing and at times crave to play it again (if only I knew where it was). My one regret? I never got the Lion King game…damn that game looked cool.

I also picked up a Game Boy along the way. Honestly, I prefered the Game Gear. That’s not to say I didn’t get play with the GB but I never had many games for it. When Pokemon Blue and Red came out though, things changed. I was a total Pokemaniac and I maintain that my lineup could (and did) take down anyone. On my birthday, I managed to get a Color edition later (my original got weird lines on the screen after one too many drops) with Pokemon Silver, but by then the system was dying off (as far as I was concerned) and I was content with some knock-off game cart that had about 100 games and wouldn’t let you save.

While everyone else was sitting at home playing their Genesis or SNES, I only got to play when at a friend’s place or we went to the mall and I was dropped off at a Toys R Us or Sears where I could play Super Mario World, Kid Chameleon, NBA Live 95, or that horrible split-screen casino level from Sonic 2 until the 5 minute limit expired and I had to give up my spot to the kid waiting behind me. While I’d begged for a SNES, my pleas went unheard. I was content to go over to my friend, Andrew’s, place after school and play with him and whatever game he was able to get on rental from Blockbuster. Highlights include perfecting every finishing and special move in Mortal Kombat I and II, beating Donkey Kong Country co-operatively, getting my first taste of Super Punch Out, being introduced to the pure awesomeness of Metal Warriors, and being ridiculously disappointed with Rise of the Robots (especially when I was FINALLY allowed to be Player 1 only to discover I could only play as that crappy humanoid robot while Andrew got to be big-ass crane robots with crushing power).

Soon I was totally engrossed the growing mech that was the Genesis system. Continuously adding peripherals like the 32X and Sega CD like Lego Blocks were my type of thing! It was around that time that my parents got a Price Club (now Costco) membership and I was often left in the video game section while they went off and bought bulk Biscotti. Every time I was dropped off, I recall hoping that the systems were running Sewer Shark or Tomcat Alley and not that damn Ecco the Dolphin. Sure I guess Ecco was a good game, but I was a kid at the time and playing as a dolphin doing seemingly nothing was boring.

Having logged more time playing SNES and the Franken-Genesis in stores, than many friends at their home, I was hopeful for my next birthday. As I unwrapped the last present, to my initial dismay, I saw that I didn’t get one of the big two consoles, but a GeoSafari and 2 expansion card packs instead. I’d played the game many times before when my parents took me to the local Mastermind and thought it was awesome. My parents had thought that the Genesis would be too violent a system for me (thanks Mortal Kombat) and decided this would be better. In hindsight, I’m grateful. That GeoSafari taught me so much random information about previous world leaders, famous historical events, countless geographic locations, and various biological wonders. Loved the system and to this day have fond memories of it.

Part 2: The Later Earlier Years