Tim is traveling this week, so we are reaching into the Discord Game Club interview archive. This time around, BioStats and Calamity Nolan interview Michael Patton, Nathan Hiemenz, and Ian Clark, who talk primarily about the development of Clockwork Ambrosia, but hit on lots of other stuff. We expect to return next week.

Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. We talk about the game's tone, the depth of mechanics and their uses, the spaces, and the use of fidelity. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Up through Displace

Issues covered: a wry tone, avoiding technobabble, countering drama with comedy, who various characters are talking to, layering in narrative, setting games in real places, consumer cultures, global customer bases, stepping over a line, getting some Sam time, delivering a variety of types of experience through a game mechanic, detecting player stories, guards becoming keys, different ways to tackle bank lasers, infinitely recursive stacks and punch cards, talking to the old guy, the many uses of a sticky camera, using quick save as a gadget, fire and alt-fire, load-outs, multiplayer asymmetry, pacing of play, whether every role was equally fun to play, office buildings, nuanced level design, a long way around to a briefcase (aka a not-so-brief-case), a high quality bar, cloth sims, high fidelity shadows, integrating new technical features into gameplay, physically-based rendering, making artistic and design choices that support the design.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Metal Gear Solid (series), Hitman (series), Thief (series), Ghost Recon (series), James Franco, Jonah Hill, The Interview, Jack-Ax (series), Sony, Bourne (series), Grand Theft Auto (series), Far Cry (series), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Assassin's Creed (series), America's Army, Evolve, Dead by Daylight, Interstate '76, Xbox, PlayStation, Unreal, Clint Hocking, Harley Baldwin, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
Finish the game?

Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp
YouTube
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. We cover lots of topics, delving into stealth and AI systems, objectives and their communication, and other thoughts. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Another mission

Issues covered: whether it was designed for a controller, graphic fidelity holding up, the fixed function shading pipeline, the crossover between audio and visual meters, what's going on with the light meter, ambient noise affecting how quickly you can move, adjusting eyesight, layering mechanics into a mini-game, sprinklers everywhere, hose extraction, trip lasers, using a body as a laser avoider, a key that isn't a key, interrogation mechanics, consequences for not interrogating, multiple paths to information, forgetting the vision modes, the marketing targets for particular consoles, dynamic mission objectives, motivating spaces through pattern language, having to mark up the world to tell you what's important, a digression into climbing anywhere, "what map?," not wasting space, clockwork levels, a globetrotting set of ops vs single-location games, Brett has a good point, contrasting flavors, just jumping in and having the briefings paper over travel, the attract mode, benefitting pacing.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: XBOX, Pulp Fiction (obliquely), PlayStation 3, Clint Hocking, NOLF 2, Max Payne, Metal Gear (series), Three Men and a Baby, Poltergeist, Eternal Darkness, Mission: Impossible (series), Entrapment, Sean Connery, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Dishonored, Prey, Hitman, Die Hard, Assassin's Creed, Crazy Climber, Cairn, Jusant, Hideo Kojima, Reacher (series), The Gray Man (series), The Hunt for Red October, Quiller (series), Shadowlord-72, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
More TCSCCT!

Errata:
Apparently there were in fact multiple shader units on the original Xbox, and supported Pixel/Vertex 1.1 shaders. We regret the error. (Fixed function was still a thing, though, I'm just not remembering the details correctly.)

Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp
YouTube
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com