Questions and Answers

So, I’ve been getting a lot of traffic from the Mythica Community sites, so I wanted to write something for the Blog that you guys might like to read. I asked JonnyG of MythicaHQ for a good topic, and he gave me three questions instead. While they aren’t specific to game creation, they remind me that sometimes players want to know what kind of people developers are.

Question 1: What does your day as a developer consist of?

My days at Microsoft went something like this: I get to work earlier than most of the other guys, around 7:00am. Between the time I get to work and the time the cafeteria in my building opens up, I read the email that’s been sent in the 8 or so hours I haven’t checked it and respond accordingly. Then, I read my daily comics, like PvPOnline and Penny Arcade , (I always look forward to Thursdays, as that is Nodwick and Full Frontal Nerdity day) and then go to Frictionless Insight , Slashdot Games , Shaknews , and then read the Mythica Community News pages , to see if there’s any new articles I need to read.
Then, I get a bagel for breakfast, read anything I haven’t got to yet, and then start writing lists of things I need to accomplish that day. These lists are somewhat cryptic, like “Create Paths for Corrupted Guards” or “Script response of boss” or “fix floating house” or “Create Patrol Generator” or “Go over terrain with Prem”.
For the rest of the day, I attempt to accomplish my list. A lot of things crop up to kick me off my goal, like meetings, urgent emails, tools that crash, assets that aren’t there, bugs in my script, impromptu meetings discussing specific design, and more crashing tools.

I do this for 8-12 hours, and then I go home.

Question 2: Does it ruin the game playing experience to be in the industry?

This is a question that would be answered differently by each person in the games industry. I don’t think anyone would say that “ruin” is a good word for how you see games differently after working on them. The first thing you notice is that you begin to have a different vocabulary when you talk about games. You speak in more specific terms. You talk about particle effects, the textures and the lighting, the combat AI vs. the social AI, the dialog, the scripting or lack thereof. You might talk about sorting, or farkling, or anti-aliasing and jaggies. Sometimes, this new vocabulary allows you to deconstruct and criticize games more, but it can also allow you to see past the game and understand the work that went into it. You can see the blood and the overtime; you can see the elegance and grace of simple answers to complex challenges. Little things that no one else would notice impress you: much like a professional athlete understands the deeper game underneath the superficial scoring of points.

Does being in the industry ruin games? No. It enhances them. It makes the beautiful gorgeous, the ugly vomitous, and the invisible visible.

Question 3: Do you play games besides computer games?

I’m going to go all philosophical on this question. The answer to this question is another question: “When am I not playing games?” Part of that answer up there to question 2 is the answer to this one. When you make games for a living, you begin to see game elements in everything you do. You begin to see efficient paths through bookstores. You have a timed puzzle: Get to work on time. You see a “B” bug in the door: The door won’t close completely shut: suggest sanding side of door to counter swelling due to moisture. You have a social puzzle: How can I convince my wife I need a new computer?

Ok, so maybe it’s not that bad (except when you’ve been doing a lot of overtime). For a literal answer to the question, without all the gobbletygook, I try to play a lot of pen and paper RPGs. Actually, I prefer running them, but I like playing them, as well. I was planning to start a “Mythica, the RPG” campaign at work, using a variation of Jonathon Tweet’s “Everway” rules, but that never came to pass. If I have time, I’ll upload the materials I created so people can adapt it to their own games.

That’s it. If any of you readers want to see anything specifically covered here in my humble Blog, feel free to write in and ask. Saves me the trouble of having to think up topics myself. :-)