Programadores e Desenvolvedores de Jogos

A while back I was contacted by Christiano Lima Santos, who helps run a Brazilian game developer community called Programadores e Desenvolvedores de Jogos. He asked for an interview, which I gave. The second issue of their truly fantastic newsletter PDJZine is out, and it contains the interview — in Portuguese, of course.

I am blown away by the quality of this ‘zine — it’s practical, detailed, and just really impressive. My Portuguese is more than a little rusty, but I was able to follow it anyway. Anyone know of comparable resources in English? I’d love to point to them. Just recently I was reading David Brin’s article about why kds don’t learn to code today, and it hit home for me (David had actually asked me for recommendations on languages a while back, so knew this rant was coming). The days of being able to type in listings are gone, but they were so important — so it’s great to see this ‘zine full of actual code blocks, and just as importantly, pseudocode.

Anyway, there’s two issues posted; if you read Portuguese or even Spanish, check it out. My interview is in Issue 2 (PDF).

In the meantime, here’s the interview I gave, in English, so you can read it. 🙂

Good day, game developer community!

As we all know, to a game be a success it’s not enough just make it works, we have to please the players and that is what makes a game designer’s work too challenging.

So we invited Raph Koster, a successful game designer, for a chat to talk about how things happen on side-scene!
Raph took a part of the development of LegendMUD, was the lead designer of Ultima Online and nowadays is working in Star Wars Galaxies.

To know a little more about his routine and the games that he produced, take a look at his homepage.

Now, lets play 🙂

PDJ: Tell us a little more about you: your educational formation, developed works, and how you began in the games market.

Raph: I started making games as a kid. I did board games with pieces made out of paper that we used to play during recess in elementary school, and I started making computer games when I was 11 or 12 on the Atari 8 bit computers. But I fell out of gaming for a long time when I thought I was going to be a writer. I did a BA in English and Spanish, and then an MFA in creative writing, before I got back into games with MUDs. I worked on LegendMUD, then got a job on Ultima Online (where I eventually became the lead), then Star Wars Galaxies. There are many many other small games that I made along the way, but most of them were never published.

PDJ: Trough your several works in game development, which ones would you like to highlight and describe to us, so we can know more about your routine?

Raph: Probably the games I am best known for are UO and SWG, even though as a percentage of the games I have designed, they represent very little. I have probably made more board games in my life than I have made online games.

As far as how I would describe those – as MMORPGs that are more interested in being a living breathing world than in the rat race of levelling up a character.

PDJ: Many people in our community are giving their first step in game development and, so, they feel confused, insecure. Would you like to give them some orientation words?

Raph: The best advice I can give is to just make games, as many as you can, all the time. Do it for the love of it, because you enjoy it. You may never make money at it, but at least you will be enjoying yourself.

PDJ: In our lives, games are everything. So, tell us: which are your favorite games as a player? And as a game designer? Why?

Raph: I enjoy many sorts of games. I tend to prefer to play with other people, either all on a couch taking turns or playing head to head on a console, or around a table. Even with single-player games, I’d rather play with others watching than all by myself. My favorite game of all time is MULE, though certain others ranging from Tetris to Unreal Tournament have also taken up huge amounts of my time.

As a designer, I like playing and looking at offbeat games, rather than at the mainstream big hits. Lately, a lot of them have been Nintendo DS games like Trauma Center.

PDJ: Talking about game development books, which ones would you recommend? What are you reading now? Which is your headboard book?

Raph: I assume you mean other than my own book! Most books on game design are of uneven quality. I like the Rollings & Adams book, Game Design Workshop by Swain & Fullerton, and though I haven’t read it all yet, I think the new Isbister book on game characters looks very good. For online, you have to read Richard Bartle’s Designing Virtual Worlds and you have to read Mulligan & Patrovsky’s Developing Online Games. Those are the two indispensable ones.

I’m currently reading James Gee’s Why Video Games are Good for Your Soul on the game book front.

PDJ: Still talking about books, we know that you are writing a new book, ‘A Grammar of Gameplay’, the follow-on to A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Tell us about its release date, what is new in it, what is its place in a game designer formation?

Raph: It’s about “how games work” instead of being about “fun” like the last one. So it will cover things like how rules, mechanics, content, story, and art all fit together. It will discuss things like how art and music and sound affect emotions and the experience, and how feedback systems work. Basically, it’s trying to dissect games to see how they tick.

It is supposed to be ready this fall, but we’ll see, I have a lot of work to do on it yet! As far as what use it will be – I hope that understanding how games work will help make better games. I am writing it as much for myself as for anyone else, really.

PDJ: In Brasil, many courses of game design and programming are arising. And so many online courses are arising on the internet. In your opinion, how a game developer should organize itself to take advantage of these experiences? There are any other opportunities that we need to search?

Raph: I think learning is always a good thing, and that game making can only improve from analysis and self-understanding. Right now, we usually don’t know why something works well, we just do it blindly. Classes and research can only help this.

But at the same time, there is no substitute for just making games and watching others play them. Any course which does not include this as an element is doomed to fail.

PDJ: Nowadays, we are seeing an explosion of webgames, mobile games and MMOGs. What do you think about each one of them? How long will they last? What can we hope of them for the next years?

Raph: Most of them, as usual, will not succeed – that is just the nature of things. I do think all three types of games are here to stay. I even think that we will see them merging over the next few years, as all games acquire connected persistent elements, and all games gain the instant access that web games offer.

PDJ: Games for Digital TV are one of the most recent kind of games. In your opinion, what will happen with these ones? The game world is composed by constant changes and improvements. The convergence between devices, PCs and consoles is a new modality. Which other big changes you hope to the future, or in others words, what do you think it’s going to happen?

Raph: I think that the digital TV boxes will essentially become capable of playing games, that we will see a connected household emerging that uses digital devices to play content stored on a central server in the home. With stuff like the Xbox 360, we’re already mostly there. The real question now is adoption, and whose standard will win out.

PDJ: The adventures, RPGs and MUDs world is merging themselves and giving origin to MMOGs, due to Internet. In your opinion what is the future of RPGs, with their single player histories and all their structure?

Raph: The traditional story-based RPG won’t go away, but it’s definitely having an interesting time of it facing up with the MMOG, even though these are very different games. You know, the MMOG didn’t arise out of the CRPG at all – it arose out of online games, which came from adventure games and D&D, not from the computer RPG. The computer RPG, with its emphasis on story, is sort of its own thing.

I think the CRPG, as shown by Oblivion, can still be quite exciting. But I also think that the lessons of MMOGs must now be absorbed by CRPGs just as every other game must learn them: persistence, customization, and so on.

PDJ: Talking about MUD, we think LegendMUD is very interesting. Would you like to talk about it, your proposal, differences in relation to other MUDS and difficulties during it development?

Raph: I cannot take credit for the original idea behind LegendMUD at all, which was Sherry Menton’s. And really, all the work on its since has very much been a team effort.

LegendMUD was based on history the way they thought it was, which is to say that if you are in a period from history, all the myths and legends that they believed in would be there. In ancient Greece, all the Greek myth is there, and so on. The game does not use classes, but instead allows people to learn skills as they go. It has now been running for over a dozen years.

PDJ: We always ask our interviewed to give some advice for those who are starting in this area. So, to who wants to be a game designer, which are the “Raph rules” for the learning and game development? What should they be careful with?

Raph: Really, the best advice is to make games – board games, card games, computer games, word games, any sort of games. Just do that. The more you make, the better you will get at it. And never forget that the point of this is all fun – if it stops being fun for you to do this, you’re doing it wrong.

PDJ: Well, now we give some space for you to say what you want to. Could you give us a last word before the end of this interview?

Raph: Thanks for the opportunity! And have fun!

I would like to be thankful for the participation of this great game designer that helped us to understand a little more about the universe of this profession.

Raph, thank you so much!