On July 19th, 2010, I attended the June/July GamePub event. This was my first time attending a GameCamp event and what I discovered was that Edmonton has a diverse and talented game development scene. The turn out was good, about 20 people, and the room was filled with a good balance of creative types, coders, professionals, indies and students. I took some time to work the room and find out what some people were working on, and was thrilled to see the presentations by Fluik Entertainment, 3DI, and Ian Stubbington. GameCamp was hosted by Logan Foster from Max Gaming.

Working the Room

As most people who have met me can attest, I am a talker. I love talking about games and to unleash me on a room full of game artists and developers is probably a little cruel, but I couldn't help myself. If I didn't shut up and you really wanted me to, I apologize.

Right inside the door I met David Hodgson, a freelance designer, and I also met Kyle Gooding who is working on an auto combat game that is currently called Project Backfire. It sounds like a really cool project that is inspired by games like Interstate 76 and Mechwarrior. I can't wait to get my hands on it. Tom Ohle was there representing Empire Avenue, who have been getting a lot of well deserved publicity lately.

I eventually ended up settling in the far corner with Jed Lang and Cody Hollis-Perdue (and another person whose name eludes me at the moment). Jed is a game tools developer who reverse engineers games to help extend the lifespan of games that have lost official support, he's pulled apart and written documentation on a number of proprietary file formats. Cody is currently working for XGen Studios. He's currently helping them build Stick RPG 2.

Now Presenting...

The presentations were great. Each of the presenters had a different viewpoint, and each had some great advice for both game developers who are just starting out and developers who have been around for a while.

Funner Gunner

Fluik kicked off the presentations by showing their new iPhone title, Funner Gunner. FG seemed like a cool title, it is easy to pick up and play and was packed with loads of upgrades and achievements. Funner Gunner will also have a bunch of social media tie-ins, with codes for upgrades being released on the official Twitter feed and you will be able to add your friends to your squadron, which will give you in game bonuses like better score multipliers.

Fluik had a couple of pieces of advice for iPhone developers: they recommended you get an early stable version of your game approved early, as the approval time for game updates is considerably shorter than the first approval. They have also found that re3leasing a full paid version of your game first and a free version later can be beneficial to sales, as it can provide a boost as the free version drives players to the full version. Finally they mentioned that by using AdMob they have managed to achieve two goals: monetizing their games and cross promoting them. Using AdMob they have placed ads for their own games into the ad rotation, which has led to a sales boost for all their titles.

Using Games for Real World Training

Next up was 3DI, who are using the Unreal Engine to help create training simulations for mining, defense, and the oilfield. Since safety is obviously a big concern, especially around the oil industry right now, this is a great market to be in. The demonstration showed how 3DI is working to map out every nuance of the activities that workers would be faced with. They brought a giant controller with them, it was covered in buttons, knobs and switches. It was cool to see how as they fiddled with it the on-screen representation of an oil rig responded and the gauges reacted in a very realistic fashion. 3Di's technical director, Andrew Czarnietzki, stressed that 3DI focuses on both realism in the graphics and in the physics, and their simulator definitely looked great and was very responsive.

To wrap it all up Andrew reset the simulation and showed us what NOT to do when standing on top of an active rig. He said his customers have described their job as "standing on top of a giant bomb and poking it with a stick". With the flip of a couple switches the rig exploded and the simulated people on top went flying. I had wondered if rag-doll physics were enabled for their sims, as I watched the poor virtual workers hit the ground my question was answered.

Level Design in AAA Titles

Last up was Ian Stubbington, the Lead Environment Artist on Dragon Age. Ian went through the steps involved in building a level for a AAA title. One of the first things he told us was that level design for a game like Dragon Age is very iterative. While many games used to have a level map given to the level designers the focus has shifted to a sort of emotional map, with a flow chart showing the different experiences that the player should encounter. Ian said that, wherever possible, it's good to start with concept art that the entire team can use to help stay true to the overall vision of a project.

Some of the advice that Ian had for game developers was to never develop a game engine and a game at the same time. With Dragon Age they were creating a whole new engine and that meant that the specs on what was possible in a level were fairly fluid, which had the result of some of the levels having different wall heights when the camera was zoomed out. On a side note, I didn't notice this when I was playing Dragon Age, so they managed to hide it well. =)

Ian showed how important it was to get an early version of the level into the engine and let testing start on it, even before there are any textures or lighting. As the level grows, he said to look for opportunities to create moments in your game that impress, rather than trying to mash everything into every level. Start with the big stuff on a level and work your way down to minute details. The trick can be knowing when the level is good enough, as Ian put it, "If you leave artists alone they will noodle forever". Get the walls in place, people aren't going to worry if you're missing a fire extinguisher.

Finally, I asked Ian what he felt the most troublesome level he ever worked on was, and which was his best. He said the answer to both questions was the same: Ostagar. Ostagar (from Dragon Age) had gone to E3 twice, and was one of the areas in the game where everybody who plays the game got to see it. The level is a castle that is on the side of a mountain overlooking a valley, and was both visually stunning and a technical nightmare.

Wrapping it Up

What I took away from GameCamp was the feeling that the game development community in Edmonton is thriving, and showing lots of growth. Logan Foster said that the GameCamp Edmonton site would be featuring a survey that was designed to help convince the Government of Alberta to increase funding for game development in our province. I look forward to it.