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Working for Fun
More and more people, particular the young, are entertaining themselves with
computer games. Many are spending more hours at gaming than an other form of
entertainment. After many hours of play, few consider making games, probable
because making games is a mystery to most. In this article we'll look behind the
scene at two game makers,
idSoftware.com the makers of
the 3-D action game "Quake", and
EZONE.COM, a popular game and
animation web site. I'll explain how programmers, artists and writers work
together to create games. I hope that with a deeper understanding of game
construction young people can get an early focus on careers that are in tune
with what they enjoy doing.
The Makers of Quake
Some people choose to play in a world filled with terror. At every turn, they
fight monsters and demons, and team up with others over the Internet to fight
for territory. This is the world of "Quake" created by the company id Software,
founded in the early 1990's the youth full team of John Carmack (programmer),
Adrain Carmack (artist, not related to John), and John Romero (game designer).
Over the past 10 years id Software has produced increasingly realistic looking,
three dimensional, action packed games. Their first game was Wolfenstien 3-D,
followed by Doom, Doom II, Quake, Quake II, and recently Quake Arena. The games
have won many wards for innovation and technical excellence.
Although id Software is unique in their level of excellence the core roles in
the team are the same roles found in all game making companies. All games begin
as an idea that has to be communicated and refined by a game designer. The
images and sounds in the fantasy world has to be created by an artist. The
programmer has to bring the story and artwork to life by constructing the game
code. Let's take a closer look at these three roles.
The Game Designer
The realistic look of an id Software game helps make you believe you are in the
scary world. Also, the game is tense because you must killed-or-be-killed, and
at the same time quickly develop strategies to find the right weapons and health
restoring kits. Game designer John Romero (now founder of Ion Storm) is
responsible for planing out these game elements. He conceives of the challenges
or levels in the game that keeps the players on their toes. In general a game
designer writes the blueprint for the game.
A game designer plays tons of games, and usually focuses on one particular game
type or genre. There are many different game genres - action, sport, strategy,
puzzle, simulation and so on - it's hard to become an expert in the design of
all of them. By playing a lot of one game genre and learning its history the
game designer becomes familiar with techniques that can be reused and updated
for a new game. For a brand new game he or she writes a game concept paper, a
short description of game. In brain storming sessions the entire team expand on
the game concept paper and the game designer writes it all down in a game design
document. The game design document looks like a large comic book, filled with
sketches and detailed description of how all the elements of the game work
together.
Simple pen and paper and a vivid imagination are the main tools of game
designer. If you can describe what you find exciting about games and visualize
new twists on existing games you'll enjoy working as a game designer.
The Artist
Everything you see or hear in a game has to be touched by the hand of an artist.
In the early part of building the game, artist Adrain Carmack would make the
sketches for the game design document to help the team visualize the game. After
all the details are nailed down he creates the wire frames outlines of the
objects in the world. He also draws the skins or textures that cover the wire
frame objects to make them look real.
The game artist uses several different computer tools for creating the artwork.
A 3-D modeling program, like 3-D Studio Max, is used to create the models. A
paint program, like Adobe PhotoShop, is used to create textures. A sound editing
program, like Macromedia SoundEdit, is used to create music and sound effects.
Depending on the size and budget a game team may have several artists working on
the different artwork. A 3-D artist would specialize in construction the 3-D
models. A 2-D animator would create cartoons characters. A musician would create
music. A sound designer would create sound effects.
Even though all the artwork has end up on the computer and many computer tools
are used, the game artist starts out creating work in the hard-copy world of
pencil, paint and musical instruments. If you find yourself sketching your
favorite game character in the margins of you note book, a career as a game
artist may be in the stars for you.
The Programmer
John Carmack, learned programming on the job, by working on small consulting
projects and other games before starting id Software with his two friends. John
Carmack created a 3-D Engine, a program that calculates the realistic world and
draws it on the computer screen. This is challenging because about 30 images
have to be computed each second to give the illusion of motion. For the images
to appear three dimensional the engine has to consider how the player is looking
into the world, the lighting conditions, the effects of fog, water and other
elements that add to the atmosphere. The engine has to be fast and deal with
complicated visual factors.
Every game needs at least one programmer, a person that writes the computer
instructions that drive the look and the logic for the challenges in the game. A
programmer writes in a special computer programming language which looks like a
mixture of English and math equations. If you like math and solving puzzles, you
can be a game programmer. Most programmers start out with an easy to learn
language like Basic, Pascal, or Lingo. Then they may learn a traditional
language like "C/C++", the one used by John Carmack to write his games. It may
take a year or two to master your first language, after that other languages can
be mastered pretty quickly.
Easy and Fun Gaming at EZONE.COM
Over the past 10 years id Software has create six games intense games that
appeal "hard-core" gamers - people that like to spend the many hours it takes to
master the challenges of 3-D action games. The universe of games is pretty
diverse and includes many other game forms that don't require the same level of
dedication. Many players enjoy fun games that they can get into quickly.
Rather than work with the traditional tools many game makers are using the
Macromedia's Shockwave Construction Kit, which allows them to create games
quickly and deliver them on the web. One example are the Australian brothers
Simon Edis (programmer and designer) Jamie Edis (artist) the creators of the web
site WWW.EZONE.COM. Over the
past 3 years they have created over 100 games that are available for all to
enjoy, free of change on the web site. Like a TV channel they get paid from
advertising placed on their web site. EZone.com is only one example of many game
makers who "broadcasting" their creations on the web.
By putting their games on the web, the Edis brothers have also vastly simplified
their business. The don't have to worry about putting their games onto a CD-ROM,
getting that CD-ROM into a box, selling those boxes to the many layers of
distributors to get it into stores, and then dealing with another layer of
advertising to make people aware of their product. They can focus on what they
love to do: make lots of fun games.
The Edis brothers are able to work so efficiently because the Shockwave
Construction Kit combines an easy to learn computer programming language called
Lingo with an animation program, a paint program and other editors into one
package. Rather than have to learn and use a dozen or so separate tools to build
a game, they use one tool and get the job done faster. They use the extra time
to create humorous cartoon characters, like Lenny Loose Jocks, and create
stories and games about Lenny's treks through the Australian outback or
misadventures in Pluto.
Whether you like playing the intense action games of id Software, or the fun and
easy games on WWW.EZONE.COM, I hope you are able to see how your interest in
games can be transformed in to a career as a game designer, artist or
programmer.
Copyright © 2001 John Henry Thompson.
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