Our next speaker was Kevin Carthew from Team17 Digital and he wanted to answer the question 'How Animation Improves Interaction'. But first we got a bit of detail on the company and what they do which was really interesting as I have always been a massive fan of them. The company has now been running for 24 years and concentrates on developing Indie Games. The name derives from 17Bit Software which is the company it used to be where you could get software put onto floppy discs to talk home and then buy animations and games as well.
Probably where Team17 is highly recognised is the Worms series which they created, made for the old Omega PC's. The original Worms game was actually made for a competition and didn't even win, it came second but they were so excited by it, it just kept growing and growing until now when its on nearly every console going. The main part to the Worms series is definitely the animation involved in the games, and the creation of the Worms themselves.
The animators will work with all disciplines including:
- Coders
- Artists
- Designers
- Quality Assurance
- Etc...
The Worms themselves are very advanced for there time, even in the mid 90s where they had 20 different weapons to chose from and each of these produced different types of explosions, not to mention the damage to the environment. Moving on, Worms World Party continued to expand the series by improving the graphics and having 50 weapons available to use, with the other additions to more moving, swimming, getting poisons so your Worm looses health over certain turns and jet packs; yes you heard correctly. Then finally you have Clan Wars, the newest of the Worms games that came out earlier this year which has improved on just about everything, and I mean everything.
The one thing that is unique about the Worms series is the dynamic landscapes and what they are capable of. They are for one thing, especially in the later games, laden with traps making it difficult to navigate around the mines and barrels filled with toxins. There are also environmental hazards and fully destructible environments meaning that if you wanted to take a blow torch from one end of the environment and dig your way through to the other side, you could, if you really wanted I guess. But this aside there is also an insane amount of animation that has been used to perfect the games over the years. There is over 20,000 animation in Worms: Armageddon alone, which is one of their earlier ones so the newer ones can have only twice that, if not more.
Kevin Carthew then went through 5 points in which to make a game brilliant, and I mean if he follows these and makes Worms I guess there's hope for all of us out there. But that aside these points will be really useful to consider in the future as they are all relevant to every game that you can make.
1. Make it snappy
- Best practice is to be input driven not animation driven
- There are levels of interactivity that can be used
- Dragon Lair was very interactive and just required you to click when necessary
- Heavy Rain or God of War do this to a great standard
- Shadow of the Colossus does this in the best way ever made to a brilliant standard
- Nobody likes to be kept waiting for an answer
- Think carefully about the interaction before doing the animation
2. Make it rewarding
- Visual feedback is part of the games reward
- Quality visual feedback can be used to modify player behaviour
- Peggle uses a very good reward system if you do something good in game
- Whereas Worms Revolution seriously failed
- Successful free to play games are a great example of this action
3. Make it playful
- Keep the animation fresh
- Have multiple animations for frequent events
- Think about using procedural animation
- Limbo uses procedural animation to generate the moving objects as you walk past them
- Much better for video sharing
- Reactive or procedural animation systems maintain interest in the game
4. Make it fit
- Think about how the animation fits within the context of the interaction
- Revolutions menu system make it fast and fun
- Some of the Internets favourite menu systems
- Of the game world
- Responsive
- Toys in Worms Revolution Menu
- Audio settings are wonderful by changing the music down the worm stops dancing
5. Make it count
- Make the interaction meaningful
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