What I Learned from Alex Laurant's GCDC Session, Pt. 2

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In my last post I discussed the first lesson I took from Alex Laurant's session at GCDC, called "The Transition from Film to Games: An Outsider's Perspective on Visual Design Challenges." 

 

In the words of the late-night TV pitch-people, "But wait!  There's more!"

 

 

The second key inference I took from Alex's talk -- in addition to a lot of useful information -- was about designers' true commitment to quality.

Most great games did not become great at the stage where they were a three-page concept doc.

They weren't great as a first rough prototype.

They became truly engrossing, fun, addicting as the little details got added, the tuning got done and the balance started to appear. 

Depending on the kind of game and the schedule, that process of finding the heart of the fun in the game play may take days, weeks or months.

Designers talk about it all the time.  The game doesn't feel right, milestone after milestone.  Then, as you struggle through a too-short period for tuning and refining, something starts to click.  And that moment comes where -- finally -- the game feels cool and special.

If you're lucky, you still have time to implement what you now know you need to do in order to have a really good game.

If you're not lucky, "they" come and tear it from your hands and ship it anyway.

In my first post about Alex Laurant's presentation at GCDC I talked about the way he role modeled an attitude best described as “I learn something new every day as I work on projects.”  And this is a guy who's been art directing for 25 years.

The second attitude he role modeled for us was attention to detail, focusing on quality in every possible detail of a project.   And then actually doing the work to get that quality detail implemented and integrated into the game.

In fact, one of the lessons he told us he learned coming from film to games was that he had to learn to make more compromises.  The need for an open world and interactivity simply gave him less control over the details of the appearance of some visuals.

You could tell he didn't like having to make those tradeoffs, even as he knew they had to be made.

That's one of the reasons I liked his presentation so much.  I like someone who gets upset at the idea of having to compromise on quality.

Even if we all have to do it eventually... because otherwise we'd never ship a game!

 

 

What is one place in your current project where you could make an improvement in quality tomorrow just by focusing on that issue and spending a little time?

Are you willing to actually take the time to do those improvements?

 

 

In my first post about Alex's talk I mentioned there was also an element of karma in his presentation.

One of his great stories was about working on effects for the film Minority Report.  Alex was struggling to find the right technology to create the empty eye sockets for the blind character Lycon, Seller of Black Inhalers.

All his ideas for how to use technology to take the actor's face and create this effect failed to work.  Then one night he looked in his refrigerator and saw a chicken carcass.  He took a whole roasting chicken, sewed shut the opening in the body and, Voila!  The correct look for Lycon's (very disturbing) eyes was born.

   The actor who played Lycon and whose performance combined so effectively with the special effects is named David Stifel.

Although the world principally knows David Stifel as an actor, in 1983 he was part of my team developing Intellivision games at Mattel.  He programmed a title called Game Maker, which was our homage to Bill Budge and Pinball Construction Set.

By the way, despite his ability to depict evil characters, David is an incredibly nice and considerate guy.   (Another quality he shares with Bill Budge!)

Stifel's game never had a chance to find an audience, because the video game crash of 1983 swept away all the console companies, and most of the jobs in computer games were lost as well.   

Alex spoke in the same room where I made my presentation in Leipzig, in the next time slot, so we went back-to-back.  Sitting there in his session I thought, "What are the odds that the same guy worked with me as a game developer, and was the actor whose face Alex transformed in a movie?"

It's a funny planet.

 

Next Week: What I learned about user interface from our freezer.

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Copyright (c) 2008 Don Daglow.  All Rights Reserved.

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