Nisute Presents: Game programming essentials

Today I get to be the guy to proudly present to you a special event that we have been working on here at nisute. With our unique look at the gaming industry, and all of the people we meet, we often hear our members and outsiders express their interrests in pursuing a career in game development or media. Interestingly, they all come to us with the same question, and so we’ve decided to set up an event to cater to part of this question: is making videogames something for me, and what does it take?At this point we have the knowledge for organizing a game programming essentials course in-house, and so that’s exactly what we’ve set up. For us, the goal of this 2-hour pilot-course is to see if there is enough interest from people to warrant organizing more sessions, and if we can arrange some guest speakers on various topics. Read more

Joystick Junkies interview Chris Birch

For the people following us here longer than 5 years you might remember that nisute and joystick junkies have gone a long way. And since we’re into gaming lifestyle, we figured it would be nice to pay our friends at Joystick Junkies, one of the ground-breaking game T-shirt designers of europe, a second visit. Chris Birch owner and Founder of JJ will be answering our burning questions today. Have fun reading!

NiSuTe: Hey Chris.
Chris Birch: Hi mate.

NiSuTe: Can you tell us something about the company and the start of it all?
Chris Birch: Back in 1999 I was wondering why no one was selling cool tees based on video games. It was strange that with such cool graphics no one had taken advantage of the imagery to design tees. Finally after talking about it for maybe a year, people got fed up of me dreaming and I decided to just do it. I drew the logo in a bar on a napkin one night, walked in to the office the next day and said: “Hey we’re starting Joystick Junkies”.

NiSuTe: Did you start on your own, or did you have a partner?
Chris Birch: Back then I had a public relations company working with a lot of games companies. So I got some friends at the trade paper CTW to sponsor us with some advertising. We invited everyone in the industry to a launch party including people from TV, film, model agencies, advertising and other PR companies. Then we designed some cool clubbing style t-shirts based on some classic gaming graphics. And our first party was a roadblock. 30 arcade machines on free play, marshall jefferson the godfather of house music DJ-ing and a self confessed gaming addict. I dreampt up the idea and started it with a couple of other guys – one who did the t-shirt production for us- another who owned the arcade machines we used for the parties. But we re-launched the company with new partners a few years later.

NiSuTe: Wow that is really cool. So JJ is more like a hybrid between the gaming industry and the fasion industry?
Chris Birch: My challenge to myself was to make gaming so cool that non-gamers would want to wear the designs. I loved the idea that I could bring together to different industries that at the time were so far apart. While gaming parties were traditionally full of guys, we threw the hottest parties in london with a nice mix of girls and guys, great music, arcade games, 80’s vibe.

NiSuTe: And, is it working?
Chris Birch: Well we’re now in some of the biggest high street stores across Europe and some of the coolest fashion boutiques stock our clothing. The reason we’ve been so successful is that we’ve designed the t-shirts or hoodies to look really cool. They have to be fashion first, not gaming first.  That means someone has to be able to walk in to a store who is not into gaming and get the design and think: “Wow that’s cool I want to wear that”. Now if I’m a gamer and I see the design there’s a bonus, there’s always something extra to it I’ll get. I realised there were people doing ‘gaming’ t-shirts but there weren’t commercial – to survive as a business let alone a fashion business you have to be commercial – so the challenge is always to make t-shirts that are commercial and will sell. But still to be true to the game and make it even cooler if you know the game.

NiSuTe: Well that must be getting harder and harder to do for you guys.
Chris Birch: We have to constantly re-invent ideas – so for winter 2010 we’re now designing a whole range with a comic book vibe.  It’s all about heroes, but the gaming inspiration is still there. It’s just everything is drawn in a pop art or comic book style.

NiSuTe: But how doe this work? Do you contact the developer with a nice design or do they contact you?
Chris Birch: You can’t just keep designing the same style of tees. Most of the time we design for ourselves. Sometimes we’ll go to a company like Atari or THQ and say: “Hey we love Saints Row. Why don’t we design some tees around the game”. We have to submit detailed proposals but if we get a licence we can then get access to all their graphics and development art. We then spend time designing a variety of graphics that we think will fit the commercial fashion trends – the guy who is the buyer for say the hip store in paris or the big chain River Island in the UK has to look at the design and think: “Yeah this is going to sell thousands in my store”.

NiSuTe: Speaking of Capcom just a minute ago. would you like to create some T’s for them (and us eventually), too? (I would love to see a JJ sir om nom nom t shirt)
Chris Birch: Hahaha. Yes i love capcom they’ve got some great games – and times are changing – when we started we were doing retro designs which then were late 70’s and eary 80’s games, recently we’ve been doing mario and sonic designs so things are catching up, and with Saints Row 2 it’s now been shown that we can do cool designs based on modern games.

NiSuTe: modern games have very detailed graphics, doesnt that pose you any problems?

Chris Birch: no because we don’t necessarily use the full graphics. Often we’ll take sketches or logos and make 2 or 3 colour art from this.

NiSuTe: and that isnt a problem for the developers?
Chris Birch: with fashion design you have to consider the costs of producing the prints and what is commercial – often this is not full colour artwork. The developers or publishers are more interested in seeing their games get in to fashion magazines and as long as you can show you’re respecting the brand and making it cool they’re usually happy. When it’s really detailed high res art of a game this isn’t necessarily what will sell as only fans of the game will understand it – that’s not a big enough market for a major high street fashion chain to justify buying the t-shirts. So you have to consider art that looks cool whether you know the game or not, you have to research the game a lot and see if there’s any cool development art or logos or poster art. We do a lot of work to find out what will work – but usually we won’t try unless we have a feeling it will work. However, for some newer bigger games we’re considering designing just for the community, with designs that are only available online.

NiSuTe: So how close are you with the developers?
Chris Birch: Some better than others – most have been to our parties in the past!

NiSuTe: Can you tell us more about the parties and the drive behind it?
Chris Birch: Well originally it was the idea to help build the brand doing great parties. Getting lots of different people in the entertainment industry together. Fashion-shows of our clothing, old arcade machines. The challenge of throwing a gaming party that was actually a fashion party. Again I loved the idea of making a gaming party the coolest party in london that night. And we did it. They were packed  every time. We’d invite press down for fashion shows of the new range, buyers, possible sponsors. It all helped promote the clothing with the sheer number of emails being sent to invite people, flyers and other press.

NiSuTe: But its all UK based? I mean the parties.
Chris Birch: We have done a party in the US. In Hollywood during E3 with lots of celebrities.

NiSuTe: But never on europe’s main land? Will this ever happen?
Chris Birch: We have cut back on the parties because there is so much work involved and it detracts from selling the fashion, however, we’re talking to some sponsors about throwing a really big party at Gamescom. I’d rather do a few really good events now than lots of smaller ones. the costs are quite high so if you don’t have sponsors it can be a difficult thing to do.

NiSuTe: True. Tell me about the celebrities ^.- who have you met and how is their reaction?
Chris Birch: Well we had a lot at the party in LA – Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jessica Alba, the Rock. That was about 6 years ago. They were all doing their thing with friends and it’s always best to let them enjoy the party than hassle them. Jessica Alba was rocking out dancing on one of the speaker’s. I meet a lot of bands in the UK – I find with our gear that people either love it or not, our colours are very bright and the graphics bold so it’s more for people who want to stand out. This is perfect for guys on stage.

NiSuTe: So lately you’re into bands ? They must recognise the games right?
Chris Birch: Yes they do – sometimes they love them as they’re playing whilst they’re on tour.
There’s some good pics in the VIP section of our site of bands wearing our gear:

NiSuTe: That must make you feel good.
Chris Birch: It’s great when people like your hard work.

NiSuTe: But it wasn’t always this easy was it? (not that it’s easy now, but you get what I mean, right?)
Chris Birch: No, you’re right. We’ve been working hard for ten years to get to this point. That’s a long time, and we’ve had hard times and good times. At the beginning we had no stores selling our products, just online on our website. Then gradually we started to find stores then distributors in other countries – most of that has happened in the last 5 years – then in each country you’re starting from scratch, gradually building things up. There’s a huge amount of investment, time and money to make each country successful. And when you’re spending time on one country you can’t focus on another so you have to be careful to grow slowly.

NiSuTe: So how big is the JJ team now?
Chris Birch: We’re  a 7 people operation; me and my business partner Rick ( I handle the creative side of things ), Rick manages the business and handles the sales, there’s Ansa who is the production manager who sees the designs through from finished artwork to actual t-shirt, sources fabrics and colours, does trend research. Then we have Lee who works with some of the big retailers managing the sales, Cindy who handles the admin and shipping, Ghurkan who does the accounts and Vicky who just joined us as an intern from Germany for 3 months. Oh and I forgot Tim who’s our finance director and one of the investors – he makes sure we don’t spend all our money! We have agents and distributors who don’t work for us directly in each country in europe as well.

NiSuTe: Okay, I think we can start rounding things up ^.^ Is there anything you want to show us or tell us?
Chris Birch: Well the new Christmas range is going online in a few days. Be sure to check it out on Joystick Junkies.

NiSuTe: What makes the Christmas range special this year?
Chris Birch: It’s got some cool designs from next year’s range brought forward especially. The christmas range is not the full winter range though, just some last minute designs we do for christmas itself. I’ll try to get you some pics in a couple of days then

NiSuTe: Anything you want to tell our readers?
Chris Birch: Thanks to those of you who’ve supported us over the last ten years, we really do appreciate it. Every t-shirt sold is like a thanks to us for all the hard work!

NiSuTe: No problem, and thanks a lot for this interview Chris!
Chris Birch: No problem mate!

New Super Mario Bros. Wii Play Together

by Tom Kerkhof (and Geert van Ostaden)

New Super Mario Bros. Wii (NSMB from now on) is basically the sequel to the original New Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo DS. The catch is, as we are all constantly made aware of by any form of advertisement Nintendo throws at us, that we can play this game with up to four players simultaneously. I know you could play four player games on the DS version, but you were never able to traverse through the levels of the main game with more than a single player. On this Wii sequel, you can.

And it is this feature, and possible this feature alone that can possibly make NSMB stand out from other platform games, or even Mario games.
I think it should be noted that NSMB is by no means a bad game – in fact, the single player is of that trademark, familiar high quality you’d expect from a Nintendo title – it’s just that it’s not what it was made out to be. For me, playing the game with four players isn’t as fun as I thought it could be – not by a long shot.
The main reasons for this are some minor annoyances that don’t do the game any justice and should really be fixed to make a better game. For instance, it is very easy to kill off your fellow players. I can honestly say it’s easier to kill them off then it is to truly help them. Now I would be the first person to admit that annoying your fellow players a bit is good fun, but it can really spoil the game in the long run. As such, I don’t understand why Nintendo made these settings both the default and without alternative. Were it possible to switch off some of the more hindering features, like how your character treats your fellow players as obstacles, or how the ‘death’ of your partners hinders your movement for a second due to its animation.

Then there is the bubble. I would love the bubble, were it not for the fact that it is sometimes too easy to accidentally activate it. Also, being able to save yourself as long as your partner is fine, perhaps makes the game a tad too easy, a feat its predecessor suffered from. As it stands, I merely like the idea of the bubble.

Of course, most of these problems are mostly absent in the versus (or ‘Coin’) mode, where the only objective is to collect as many coins as possible to win. In this mode, it’s a free-for-all and each player is allowed to hinder the other players as much as they can. However, the goal in this game is perhaps unsuited for this kind of game play. There is no way to ‘steal’ other players’ coins; you just have to collect as many coins as you possibly can. In some levels, it is thus very hard to stop players who already managed to collect enough – or many – coins. A shame, really, since I would bet some good money on this mode being an absolute hit, had it been refined a bit more.

In the end, this mostly means I think NSMB disappointed me a little. I though the concept of playing a classic Mario game would be a unbelievably good one, but it turns out it is merely a mildly entertaining one (or possibly an annoyingly frustrating one). Had Nintendo fixed some of the problems I listed before, then perhaps the game would have been great. In that case, I would even forgive the game its complete lack of any online support, a feature I think is sorely missed in a game of this day and age, especially when it tries to profile itself as a multiplayer game.

What remains is the excellent single player that takes elements from many classic Mario games and, like its predecessor, is an excellent addition to the library of Mario games. Admitted, it lacks the ‘fresh’ feel of its cousin on the DS, but it still has everything you loved about Mario. I just really miss the Multiplayer mode that could be so awesome, but even that mode is at least enjoyable, so in the end NSMB turned out to be a fine addition to the Wii library.

IGAD Breda Is A Game Design School Like No Other

Today Kevin and I (Maikel) traveled to Breda, an old town in the Netherlands; we had been invited by a teacher from a school there to have a look around. After battling a windy and rainy day on my motorbike with Kevin holding on for dear life, we arrived at the NHTV International University of Applied Sciences. A branch of this University is called IGAD, which stands for International Game Architecture and Design, and it is at this department of the NHTV that the teacher Stefano Gualeni lectures. When we arrived,  Stefano was eagerly waiting to give us our tour of the faculty.

The tour began in the teacher’s office, where Stefano first revealed to us the driving force of the IGAD course. The course is among the first to have a teaching staff made up almost entirely of highly experienced professionals who came straight out of the gaming industry themselves, and were active in the industry for at least 10 years. Among the staff, there are teachers who have worked for companies from Intel to Square to Rare, and many more. Their room was divided into four rows, each row intended for teachers with specialties ranging from programming to art and design.

When exploring the rest of the building, we began with the first year students. These were the lucky few that actually got into the course, overcoming the strict intake procedures practiced at the school. Of the six hundred plus students that apply for this education every year, only a few get personally selected and find their place at the school.

The first year at IGAD will quickly throw you into the same environment many developers experience each and every day. Without any warning you will be thrown into Maya (a 3D modeling tool used in many game development companies), you will be drawing, painting and sculpting models manually, and before you know it, you are quickly approaching your first deadlines. In another class, Gamelab, you will be working with a small group of students to create your own small game from the things you have learned in the first few weeks of the course.

The school does have many drop outs, but most of the time it’s because the students can’t handle the high amount of time they have to invest into learning and getting their projects to succeed, since you will be spending hours upon hours on your project after school to get it all done before the deadline (several students even reported that they sometimes have to skip sleep for a night or two). “Pressure is always high since students have to get used to these environments, ” says Stefano, “since when they want to work in the gaming industry you have to get used making long hours under high pressure of a deadline”

Nevertheless, many students accept all of this, as one of them said,

“Seven weeks ago I came here and basically knew nothing even when I have been gaming all my life. But now I am already creating a game, and that amazes me and is really paying off all the efforts for me”

Another student said,

“Ever since I started here I got to learn so many skills I even didn’t know I had in me. Also, it is so cool to have teachers that have been working in the industry themselves. Now I know why it’s so important to invest a few extra hours of sleep just to finish our projects, although our art teacher says that we do need to sleep more to become more creative *laughing*”

While we were talking with the first year students, Stefano asked them to show off some of their projects.  Although some were pretty basic,  you could seen the enthusiasm in their eyes;  sometimes they even appeared quite proud of their achievements.

Stefano took us to the Drawing Room with the teacher Martin Beresford, who is the lecturer of drawing skills, a class where the students were working with all kinds of plastic models, drawing them to learn to look at objects in other ways. In the drawing skills course, the subjects of the students’ drawings can be almost anything from industrial to biological. They even have live models.

Leaving the classroom behind with the students and their little model airplanes, we went back to the teacher’s office where we had a meeting with one of the handful of Dutch teachers the school has: Jacco Bikker (head of the programming department). Jacco started his programming career as a hobby and eventually ended up at Intel reprogramming and modifying the processing speeds.  For some reason, we started to talk about spare time and what effect this has on his free time and family life. Since he is a father of 3 children and is happily married, he did have to do some serious juggling with his work, hobby and spare time, eventually ending up in his own “nerd cave” (a small room downstairs in his home) where he can work and at the same time spend time with his family. Working at IGAD gave him some extra time to spend with his family.

Next up was our very own Chris McEntee, who seems to have really grown a lot since I last heard him speaking about his work. To me, it looks like he found his real talent as he had shown me a few things he had made for a recent animation assignment. If you want to know more about Chris and his gaming education at IGAD just click here as we go along to our final interview.

Finally, Stefano had set us up with Marcello Gomez Maureira, who is currently working on the most promising project at IGAD,  according to Stefano.  The game Hearfest is a game where you wake up as a bat and learn new abilities from scent,  smell and, naturally, sonar. We talked about how difficult it is to work in a big team of students and how they cooperated with each other even if one is holding the team back. He told me that he doesn’t like to kick people off of his team, but the teachers did say that if it causes problems you really should unless there is any other way. The game still looked really rough around the edges and it had a lot of room for improvement. Still, we can’t judge unfinished work, and we believe that with some love for the project and some devotion, this game might just win a prize in an upcoming competition.

…and with that I’m signing out.

Inside Mahjong Mountain

Dennis chafiâ met Chris van der Linden at the gamescom 2009 and reviewed one of their games. Then we visited Kalydo and did a behind the scenes feature. A while ago they released Mahjong Mountain which we reported about and now we will give you an insider on that very game. So sit back and relax as you read through the interview and as a bonus; developer comment!

The interview:

Nisute: Mahjong is one of the most common flash games on the internet. Why did you choose mahjong to build upon?

Chris : It indeed is a common game that’s freely available on the web. We thought it was a nice challenge to re-make a classic like that but with a Kalydo twist.
The world of cube offered a good backdrop for this game because of the eastern theme and because it looks very colourful. To compete with free mahjong games we put alot of time and effort into making the game world a pretty one. Hence the number of scripted 3D camera angles, beautiful locations and more. Just to give you an example; have you ever played mahjong at the bottom of a waterfall? (as Chris finishes he smiles)

NiSuTe: We know that Mahjong mountain uses the same asian theme as Cube, but how did the style of Cube come to life?

Chris: The visual style of Cube is something we’ve made with the help of the art team. At that time we mainly were using the theme of our underwater game Nauticz. When the puzzleconcept of Cube proved to work out, i went back to brainstorming about what we could do with what we had. Together with Kirtsten Nuyts (concept artist) we came up with an eastern world in which everything is square. This worked so well that we soon had a working world with surprisingly humorous characters.

NiSuTe: Why would a casual gamer pay for your version of Mahjong while there’s a thousand and one free versions of mahjong to play on the internet?

Chris: Mahjong Mountain is the difference between a cartoon on tv and a Pixar animation film in the cinema. Directly after you start the game you’re sucked into the amazing world that is Mahjong Mountain. In the temple you choose your favourite character to play with. On your trip to the of the mountain you visit incredible locations with stylish seasons. This experience you don’t get in some random free version of Mahjong which also usually are 2D. Hopefully there are a decent number of people that see the potential of a game like this.

NiSuTe: Mahjong Mountain obviously revolves around playing mahjong on an island. Why didn’t you choose to name the game Mahjong Island instead of Mahjong Mountain?

Chris:  lol
Good question, you sound like one of our programmers. (Chris blinks)
The reason we give it the name it has is because it clearly also revolves about a mountain on the island.

NiSuTe: The game is made for the casual audience, but what about you, the developers? Which part of the game do you like the best, or what part did you enjoy the most while developing?

Chris: Personally i thing the environment is an fantastic element. It’s simply pleasant to look at while someone is playing the game. The leafs falling, the water rushing from the waterfall or the lights that turn on as the day turns to night, all of those fine details nicely executed. This i personally think is the strength of the game, because let’s face it, to mahjong we cannot change that much. Then it was quite the challenge to clearly illustrate the different levels of depth into 3D. We had not expected this would turn out to be a challenge at all!

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The developer comment:

Figure above shows some steps in the production process of the game. From sketch to Final in-game model. During the design of the characters we always kept in mind that we are working in a cubical universe. That is why some assets of the Sensei (his ponytail) changed a few times during the production process. I never thought making cubes would be so difficult.
Our main focus was to create very obvious cubical characters, wich would bring a smile on the face of our gamers.

Cube Mahjong takes place on a big mountain. We were quite fond of the idea to bring rising in level, to the player in a litteral and visual way. The better you get the higher you go.
Each stage represents one of the four season. You start in the pleasant, warm spring season and ends in cold winter. At the end we have a little suprise for our gamers, a warm greet from a very unusual character.

We tried to make our Mahjong stand out from all the others. For one, by actively integrating 3D elements and also by rewarding the gamer visually and in game play for the progress he makes.

The sound in Mahjong is focused on achievements and ambiance. They really add to the pleasure of playing in the cubical universe surrounded by colorful creatures and characters.

BredaBrawl II Results!

BredaBrawl II

Back on October 18, NiSuTe, NHTV Breda and Foregames held the second annual BredaBrawl Tournament. The turn out was better than the first time around, this time with 35 eager competitors and a variety of character choices, making for one diverse event! There were some well-knows from the Dutch Brawl community such as last BredaBrawl’s champion Cenel, as well as runners up Gymmo, Nick and Güvan. This time around, however, the early stages of the tournament were held in group phases instead of knockout, allowing for more play time and less chance of one mistake leading to an early demise. Read more

Meet The Players Podcast #6 – Hi, How Are You Pete Franco

NiSuTe special: Kalydo

At the Gamescom a few months ago, Kenneth and I walked humbly over the “Holland Pavillion” at the business area where all dutch gamedevelopers could have a word with each other, and have their business appointments. Chris van der Linden, Creative Director at Kalydo, approached us, and we had a great conversation. If all this went past you, click here for a refresh!  The conversation wasn’t that long, so we decided to pay them a visit. After all, Eindhoven is very close to NiSuTe’s office!

Kalydo is a young development company settled in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Starting out with a small group of friends, the company has been growing ever since. Chris is one of those founders: “We started with 4 people to develop in 2005. In the beginning we were all volunteers, we had a lot of part-timers and interns so we have seen a lot of people come and go. At this point we have 20 people working here.”

As the creative director, Chris has a busy schedule. “On mondays we usually have meetings with partners and other company’s, I’m also responsible for the marketing of our games, and bringing the product to the world. I work together with Rob, who is our gametech. The rest of the week I keep in contact with partners, do some photoshopping for the marketing, and send a lot of e-mails. My main job is to direct the whole artist department, both audio and visual aspects of the games.” The team is a very active one, and like to play their games themselves as well. If you look at the highscores, the team is very high in the leaderboards!

At this point 6 games are done, the seventh is on it’s way and the team is working hard on a new game. The first 6 games are colourfull, happy games. They can either be improvements of classic arcade games like brick breaker, or a whole new concept like ‘Cube: Gardens of Zen’; a puzzle game which requires a lot of spatial visualisation ability. At first hand all these games look like casual games for everyone to play, but games which hardcore gamers detest. But looks deceive! “All games which we make are a great compromise between casual and hardcore. The games are quick, easy to understand, but with great storylines and achievements that only die hard gamers can solve.” At this point all games are available in Dutch and English, but “more languages will be available in the future.”

As stated in the first article, Kalydo has a very special way of letting the audience play their games. You can buy credits for your account on Kalydo or a social network. With these credits, you can play the games, and when you played a certain game long enough, it becomes yours. In my opinion that’s a great system, for; when you don’t like a game, you didn’t waste too much money on it, and when you really like the game, you will never pay too much.

Kalydo isn’t just a company anymore, it has become a platform. “At this point, we have contact with some other companies who want to publish their games on the kalydo platform. This way, we aren’t just developers, but also publishers.” Netlog is the first social website which supports this platform. “If everything goes well, our full installment on the website will be this month (October 2009) and then we’re off ground on the social networks. We have 2000 players now, but we expect an upward line after this month.” Kalydo will also be available on Hyves. “The complete partnership with Netlog took us more then a year, so Hyves will take a while as well.”

So what’s new at Kalydo? “At this point, a game is opted for multiplayer as well. We try to make the game smaller, cut it into pieces, and since it’s browserbased, it will be easy to make it a multiplayer.” A new game is being made at this point and is called Haven. It’s a big shooter, which looks a lot like starfox, but darker and with a great story. It’s not yet clear when the game will be done, but expect to see it really soon!

This is a really interesting way of playing games on a new platform. Check out their websites as well!

Official Kalydo website: Click Here
Kalydo On Netlog: Click Here

Episode 32 – Heads Up! U Prankster!

Episode 31: Heads Up! Free Time!!!

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