So you say you want to develop your own video game? Yeah, you and about a few million other people. Despite what some will tell you, it’s by no means an easy task; if it was, then you’d see thousands upon thousands of AAA titles every year for your convenient consumption at low cost to you. In reality, high-quality titles are very rare (depending on whether you ask an optimist or a pessimist, there are between six and forty such titles a year) and are expensive to boot (in some places in the United States, copies of Warcraft III and Return to Castle Wolfenstein sold for $70 upon release). Not only is game development difficult, it’s time-consuming, expensive, and creatively exhausting.

The first thing in game design, like many other creative pursuits, is to make a good overview of your concept. Just like you wouldn’t make a movie without a storyboard or a painting without sketching it out first, a good (and perhaps necessary) first step for game design is to write out what you want your game to do, the story behind it, and how you’d like your game to play out. Some things to consider when doing this are:

1) What makes my game unique? Just because you have a good idea doesn’t mean that people will want to pick it up. Think of what you want your game to feature, and write them down. For purposes much later on, keep a short list of things that your game does that few other (if any) games of its type do. Most top-tier titles from newer developers have something that nobody else has seen before, be it the swashbuckling scenes from Prince of Persia or the comic-book kitsch of Commander Keen. These “hooks” aren’t necessary, but they do draw interest. If you don’t have a new gameplay style like my first example, try to do the latter and be more unique in the art style while still being palatable to most. I can probably say with confidence that not too many people will play a game that features randomly generated pastel textures.

2) How is my game organized? Whether this involves the user interface, the help systems, or the layout of the game’s progression, organization is important. Making things unnecessarily hard for your intended audience to play the game isn’t good; in fact, it frustrates potential buyers and will certainly get game reviewers to pitch your precious CD in the wastebasket as if they were playing Frisbee Golf with it. To paraphrase Einstein: “Keep things as simple as possible, but not any more so.” Interpret that as you will.

3) What makes people want to play my game? Most likely, you’re not creating an open-source project; if you’re creating a game, you’re more than likely creating a game that you’ll want to sell (be it an original product or a game mod that hopes to gain publisher support). If you want it to sell, well, you’ll need to make a game that people will gladly pay to play. Keep in mind the strength of the game’s plot (if it doesn’t have one, don’t worry too much; if it does, make sure it’s good, as there’s nothing worse than a half-baked plot), the general aesthetic design of the game (is your gamer willing to sit down and play it rather than fleeing in terror?), and the learning curve needed to play it (if it’s too hard, people will be less likely to play).

Once this is out of the way, have your notes in a single place (like a notebook, sketch pad, CD-RW disk, or, my favorite, a legal pad) and start to add concept artwork to your notes, so that you can show others images in addition to your writings. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words, especially when people are having problems visualizing your information. However, don’t use pictures in place of words, as then you will have as many or more confusions than were you to have none at all.

After all of this, keep your design notes and specifications, all of them. Why? Simple; that way you can have other people look them over and give you advice (and heed it if necessary, as you can’t do it on your own), use them for future use (adding on to your ideas), or to send them off to another developer to see if they want to take on your project (be careful with this; if you’re not attached to your project, you may not like the end result if somebody does take the game design). Once you get your preliminary design work out of the way, then you have only one of many steps out of the way for your game’s progress of development. Scarily enough, this might be the easy part of the process for you. The rest gets more technical, more frustrating, and certainly more painful on the wallet. Nevertheless, there’s nothing quite like developing a game. To be honest, the concept of creating something that other people can experience and possibly even add on to is one that boggles the mind, and that is the goal desired by most developers of games, explicitly stated or not. Game design isn’t just a business or a vocation; it is an art that attacks the senses and the imagination, and an art that attracts the masses to it.

Welcome to the interactive digital world.

OMF:2097 was a very early introduction into the world of multiplayer fighters over modem, serial link, network, or BBS link and over Virtual IPX networks OMF’s multiplayer still had some life. This was a very early multiplayer implementation and things have come a long way in the world of multiplayer gaming. However, these unique aspects grasped a whole array of fans and kept our interests for years.

The game has received many good reviews from fighting game fanatics and people who don’t even like fighting games, as well as picked up awards and entrances into Halls of Fame!

“One of the BEST fighting games ever made. Period… Now I'm *not* an action gamer, but this game did keep me hooked for hours. Two thumbs up for this underdog, a proud entrant in our Hall of Belated Fame” – The Underdogs (www.the-underdogs.org)

“One must respect this, the legendary PC fighting game that remains the ultimate name in robotic combat… Download it, fire up that dusty MS-DOS window, and experience what many have called the best fighting game ever created for the PC. Rock'em Sock'em Robots really has nothing on it.” – William Cassidy, Gamespy, Hall of Fame (www.gamespy.com)

“In short, OMF is a 2D fighting game with blazing graphics and sounds.” – Boson, GameHippo, Top 20 Rated Games (www.gamehippo.com)

How could Diversions Entertainment stop at what seemed like the peak of the gaming experience? Well, they didn’t. Ladies, gentlemen, dogs (Hi Nanook!) and every creature in the OMF Universe, fighting games have evolved. Diversions Entertainment has broken the barriers of fighting games to create a new peak… The Everest of gaming is here this year with One Must Fall: Battlegrounds.

The transition from 2D to 3D is brilliant. There is a familiar fighting fury in a newly realized 3D world with immense potential. The look has changed to behind the shoulder view and this has been a benefit to the genre, allowing individual limbs to be controlled, multiple opponents to be attacked and of course, the whole arena to be explored, in glorious full 3D. Graphically stunning One Must Fall: Battlegrounds provides us with other technical beauties to match. Dynamic Sound offers the ability to adapt the music, composed by the talented copperhand, to the mood of the scenario. You will hear an involving, deep reflection of how well you are doing in the game. Little touches like this ensure OMF: BG will be as impressive as 2097 was, and indeed still IS.

They say a picture tells a thousand words, well here I’ll illustrate you sheer brilliance evolving into the beginnings of a self-actualising journey.

1994	2001	2003

A big difference in the graphics yet we still have a hint of the nostalgic charm that is OMF! Beautiful shots of the hangar in 3 different timeframes there; it’s like watching the game evolve over the most part of a decade.

The biggest step up is multiplayer functionality. There is the opportunity to battle it out with up to 15 opponents, or whatever the hardware constraints limit this to, and this is a thrilling proposition. Multiplayer gaming is increasing with the rise of broadband and PC gaming is where network and internet play began and is still the most popular platform for such game play. With this, Diversions Entertainment’s idea for an Online Multiplayer Fighter, (OMF – neat eh?), is truly unique. The action is intense, the game play varied. Strategy over button-bashing is the key. A game that brings back that smile with new words… “You are in the lead!” A triumphant feeling and no matter, a win or loss, you go back in for more. I hint of the excitement and addictiveness that the game brings to us.

At this stage I must offer a “thank you” to the fans on the boards and the members who are a part of the beta pool. They have made One Must Fall progress to the stage it is at with their constant support, vigorous testing and, of course, promotion through word of mouth… and whatever methods they could employ ;). There have been a few builds released recently each with new content and/or tweaked balance and yet more quashed bugs.

Currently the volcano arena is being tested and comments about its potential have been flying in from all areas. There is so much discussion over one arena and each time these suggestions are taken into account for the further development of a more rewarding gameplay environment.

The newest addition, alongside the volcano, and indeed a quite necessary addition, being tested is the Admin system. This enables passwords to be set, kicks to be administered and even vote kicks to be undertaken between administrators. So far I’ve had no trouble myself kicking off AI once I wanted to get a fight going with real humans and this has enhanced gameplay to no end.

There is still work to be done however. At present, the final couple of arenas are near completion, and the hazards for several remain unimplemented. This should be something exciting to look forward to as the game nears completion. New arenas have always given birth to different strategies within them.

The robots are coming along superbly; with a fair amount of balancing they could be perfect. The tweaking DE will do with the feedback from testers is essential to increasing the playability of the game.

With the deletion of each bug, comes along another bug it seems in the beta testing process. This is common in testing but many creases are continuously ironed out resulting in a much smoother game overall as the time goes by. Still it will be a great feeling when the beta pool eventually scours the beta for bugs and the Beta Test Bug Report forum is empty. Let’s just hope they don’t all go Agent Smith on us after losing purpose ;)

Recently the tester pool first met the patching system for BG. This meant smaller downloads were required and it seemed like a clever idea, but it didn’t quite work well. Many errors were encountered and Rob’s ended up in a constant head-to-head battle with InstallShield’s Installer packages. It seemed like there was no hope until Rob changed from InstallShield Developer to Professional. After yet another 400-something MB file download we were now able to experience smooth installation and seamless updates. A glorious victory for Mr. Elam!

The game has gone through much in its lifespan. There were the old models with low polygons dropped in favor of the new models with higher polygons and a much cooler look Also the Open GL renderer was dropped in favor of Direct3D which not only improved the graphics of Battlegrounds, but actually helped increase performance. It seems D3D and BG were a match made in heaven. Well, nearly…

This is a great game and a great experience is had watching the progress of it. 7000 message board members, even more fans are still hidden, lurking or not even in the know of the eagerly anticipated Battlegrounds. Well even though it will be released, “when it is done,” I leave you with this final thought on OMF: BG:

There’s nothing quite like attacking an opponent who has, in order to survive themselves, assisted you in the takedown of a powerful enemy. It’s survival of the fittest in these arenas, for it is true that:

Before You Can Rise, One Must Fall...

Music has been used in computer games ever since technology allowed the first home console systems to become affordable and widespread. Since then, there is no doubt that it has become one of the most highly regarded components of a typical computer game. But why is music so important? How has it managed to be elevated to its highly-regarded position?

Anyone who has been in contact with music, from even the most casual of listeners to the most celebrated of composers, can attest to the fact that music fuels and manipulates human emotion. Different pieces have different characteristics, and it is these characteristics that determine the emotions we feel through the process of listening to a piece of music from beginning to end. Allow me to cite some well-known classical pieces to illustrate my point. What do you feel when you hear the thunderous beginning to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony? Dread? Unease? And how do you think Beethoven’s 9th Symphony earned the title “Ode to Joy”?

Music in computer games really is no different to the traditional music of classical composers, in this respect. The primary goal of a piece of music in a computer game is to make you feel something – to make you empathize with the character you have in your control. Imagine a party of heroes entering a dimly-lit cave in an RPG. Eerie music is playing in the background. What does it make you feel? What does it make you think? The music is trying to tell you something: Keep a good look-out. You don’t know what’s lurking behind that corner over there. Similarly, think of a thumping techno soundtrack to a fighting game (no prizes as to what I’m alluding to here!). The purpose here is to get your adrenalin going - after all, no normal person is going to want to beat their opponents to a pulp if there’s some cutesy flute twittering around in the background!

Music has other goals, too. For instance, it may not cause you to feel an emotion so much as it serves to describe a mood or scene. Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is a suite of pieces that do nothing but describe scenes – converting visual art into audible art. And believe me, it works. It works very well indeed. It may even surprise you to know that one of the pieces that made up Pictures at an Exhibition, the “Promenade” piece, actually found its way into a game. It accompanied certain scenes in the game Mario is Missing, if any of you remember that. Yeah, OK, so it wasn’t really much of a game. Nor was it very good. But that’s not the point.

Anyway, so far, we have only talked about linear music – music that is played straight through from beginning to end. However, what about dynamic music? Well, the truth is that the same principles that apply to linear music, also apply to dynamic music. For instance, the purpose is still to evoke a reaction from the listener – although the music now has a less self-defined narrative (story-like) structure, preferring to draw the beginnings, middles and endings of tunes from the actions of the players or NPCs (non-player characters) in a game. (Because of the nature of dynamic music, it is not so much used to describe a scene, because a scene has a linear nature – and by definition, dynamic music does not have a linear nature.)

It may come as a shock to some people for them to know that dynamic music has been around a lot longer than people think. Although it has recently sharply gained popularity and attention, the concept of dynamic music has actually been around since 1989. Super Mario Bros. was one of the earliest examples (albeit a rather crude one) of the use of dynamic music in a computer game. Remember when you were playing a level, and you were spending too much time on it? Every time the timer ran down to 100, the music sped up, signaled by an ominous little snippet of music – serving the purpose of telling you that you really ought to be coming close to finishing the level pretty quickly. That is dynamic music at work in a very simple example.

So, now that I’ve taken you through this short exposition into the whys, the wherefores, the goals and the messages of music in games, we can now delve into the technicalities behind the music – in other words, next we’ll be going into the actual process of how the music gets from an idea in a composer’s head, to a full-blown piece accompanying the next Game of the Year. Stay tuned.

Currently there are a few clans active called: hyper-X, eXceSs and Inter-Link. The last battle was between hyper-X and XS which ended up badly for hyper-X. The final score was 4-17 and the bad thing was that 2 out the 4 were scored because an XS member threw a Hyper-X member out of the arena requiring XS to commit suicide twice due to agreed-upon ring out rules. An interesting match, with the caveat that ring outs and running away would be penalized.

At the moment the Inter-Link clan managed by Tricky_IL is requesting people to become a member of his clan. To become a member please post at the message board in the clan thread or mail Tricky himself at tricky_il@hotmail.com.

I played 2 weeks when I heard the Beta would end, and it did, it turned out to be a look-this-just-a-stupid-commercial-in-the-form-of-a-beta-so-people-buy-the-game-when-it-goes-gold. Aw well there are more tests out there!

I’ve tested quite some games since the start of the new school year (2002-2003), most of them were just some gold release and commercial tests. Just like Eve2 genesis, it was just 2 weeks of “testing” without any bugs so far found, and that’s a bummer for someone who would like to find some. After overcoming that disappointment I signed in for a Turn-based multiplayer game, when I got accepted, it was the same story all over again. Just a gold release to get some more people interested in purchasing the game.

It was on a rainy pre-summer day, I was bored and surfing around a bit on the internet, when I found an article on PC Gameworld about OMF:Battlegrounds, (my heart jumped over), OMF, that game I always played when I was a little kid, a new version, and a MMOFG, I just had to sign up. So I did, and life went on……

Until one day in November, forgetting all about OMF:BG, a message from Judy Elam?, and I thought, “now who’s that?” I read the message, and my heart jumped into my mouth, and screamed, “YEAH!!!” Now, about a year and a half later, I’m still testing and I like it, being in the community, telling my friends about it, letting them try, and see them getting busted by AI’s is almost the greatest. The greatest thing is that with OMF you have contact with the development team, something I’ve missed with all the other tests. If you want a fun game to test, you should go to some big company with millions of dollars, but go to a relatively small team, and test. Then you will feel the real beta test.