Squanch Games Reveals High On Life

 Hey everyone.  As you may know Squanch Games is a company lead by Rick & Morty creator Justin Roiland.  They finally revealed the title I was working on with them in 2020.  It's called High On Life about an alien cartel that is selling humans as drugs for aliens.  So you and some talking guns team up to take them down.  

Looking at the trailer I see some familiar things and also some great new stuff!  Hope they don't forget about me in the credits, but seriously Squanch was a fun group of people.  Glad to see the game is alive and doing well.  Can't wait to play it.  

Check out the trailer!

Farcry 5 E3 Game Play Footage

Here's the game play footage from E3 of my current project Farcry 5.  I hope you're as excited as I am.

Ubisoft Swag Has Dropped

Since the announcement of Farcry 5 Ubisoft certainly has been cranking out the swag to us.  Not that I’m complaining but let’s face it, an average game dev’s wardrobe is nothing but free game t-shirts.

 

My Quest For AI Individuality

I am not a programmer, I am especially not an AI programmer.  I am a Designer so my job is to have visions and plant them in others….well sort of.  But a game did this to me and I’ve had a hard time shaking the curiosity of what if even after all these years.  I don’t even know if it was a real moment but it felt like one and that’s what’s important.

The game was Unreal.  The first Unreal.  The single player game.  I was running from a Skaarj which was a predator-type creature and common enemy in the game.  I ran into a room and dove under a stairway to at least give me time to collect myself.  The Skaarj ran into the room and stopped.  Crouched under the stairway I was watching him assuming he would spin around and shoot me using his “knows where the player is at all times” AI knowledge, but that’s not what happened.  Instead he stood there, looking around.  Apparently coming to the conclusion that he had lost me he slowly walked out of the room.  This may not seem like a big thing but this was 1998.  Back then AI ran at you and then shot at you, and not much else.  I never saw an example of this happening again in the game and even replaying it I never had it repeat.  What the heck happened at that moment?  Was it a bug? A happy glitch?  Whatever it was it left an imprint on me and my approach to AI scripting. 

When I was on the Quake 3 team I spend several weeks at id Software working as a preliminary production tester at both the beginning and end of the project often focused on game play rather than bugs.  One of the AI programmers there (Mr. Elusive) and I got into a discussion regarding Sarge’s level.  You were in a one on one match with Sarge and when he was being balanced I said it felt like he was cheating.  It felt like he was taking aim on me through the walls and shooting me the very moment I came around the corner.  Mr. Elusive assured me that it wasn’t happening, that’s not the way the AI works.  I said but it feels that way and he again said that’s not what happens.  So I explained, “Whether or not it is happening doesn’t matter.  What I’m saying is it feels like it is.  The players will feel like it’s cheating.”  That is what AI is all about, feeling correct.

In 2001 I worked on Return to Castle Wolfenstein and strove to make each AI feel unique, like they were an individual.  Through the script I was able to make some become more aggressive when their health dropped.  I made some cower and run for cover when their captain died.  I wanted them to feel real like had a sense of self-preservation mixed with a personality.  I’m not sure it was achieved but again things were pretty basic back then.

My next opportunity to put a stamp on AI was on Quake 4 but thing had changed.  Game play structures had become more systemic.  While Quake 4 AI was certainly not systemic there was no room for tinkering in the AI structure.  AI was setup to be predictable.  The guys with green armor always throw grenades, the guys with red armor have more health, etc, etc.  The archetypes were different but the individuals were not.  Once Quake 4 shipped I became a little obsessed with a Quake 4 mod I wanted to create called Grunt Hunt.  In Grunt Hunt it was you against 1 Grunt, but instead of a mindless charging creature he would run from you, pick up health and ammo drops, he would strive to live rather than be mindless fodder essentially following the same rules as the player.  Seek better weapons, ammo for weapons, and health.  However unlike multiplayer bots the pace would be slower, with faster death and higher stakes for sudden moves.  I wanted to AI to experience the world as the player did.  The player doesn’t know a heath pack is in a room until he walks in it, and I wanted the AI to not know either.  A health pack enters their field of vision, they assess their health and determine if they need it or not.  Their health drops dangerously low, they change tactics to a more hyper defensive mode, going cover to cover in search of health over attacking.  At least this was my vision.  I was quickly told by programmers this couldn’t be done.  They said the processing power needed to have an AI running around assessing their environment was too great.  So that sucked.  

On later titles I conceded to simply making the AI appear smart however since coming to Ubisoft they use a fully systemic system that designers have little control over.  I can't really talk too much about the systems Ubisoft uses but I think there is room for improvement that can rise the average AI about the rank of fodder.

AI has become more of a person pursuit at this point.  I have many titles rattling around in my head with unique AI problem to solve.  I would still love a chance to tinker around with AI ideas that go beyond the norm.

DOOM Documentary

Just came across this really good documentary about the creation of the latest DOOM.  It show the development struggles id Software had with making a new version of a legendary game.  Certainly similar struggles we had while making Wolfenstein and Quake 4 when I worked at Raven Software. Story was not id's strong suit and I'm glad they finally found a way around it that fits them.

Lotta Quake

Looking through my wardrobe I recall how many Quake games I've been a part of.  Certainly strange to thing that when I was playing Quake 1 I wasn't even part of the game industry.  Things certainly changed.

Where My Interest in Games Came From

I often credit my intro to the video games to a Wolfenstein 3D demo but in reality if I think back I was interested in games way before that.  I lived out in the Iowa countryside so I rarely had access to video game arcades.  So I was super lucky in 1982 when my grandmother gave me a mini Donkey Kong console for Christmas.  I played this thing to death and was grounded on several occasions for playing it under the blankets when I should have been sleeping.  It was super simple but it was all I had.  This game had to

get me through a number of years because it wasn’t until I was in high school that I was able to hit the arcade with any kind of regularity and Wolfenstein 3D was 10 years away.  When I did get to the arcade I would go for Duck Hunt, Tempest, and Rampage but my favorite was always Joust.  I don’t know what it was about those flapping ostrich riders but I couldn’t get enough.

After graduation I had a roommate and he had a Sega Master System and I was hooked.  Space Harrier, Ghost House, Psycho Fox, Fantasy Zone.  My game play became pretty regular and annoying to the people around me including my roommate who wanted his console time back.  But like everyone fresh out of school I had no money and when my girlfriend and I moved out and got married we didn’t have money for games and again my inner gamer went into hibernation waiting for the right conditions to emerge.

These conditions happened years later when my wife mistakenly agreed that we should get a Sega

Genesis system.  BAM!! Again emerged the gamer sleepily playing until dawn, beating each expensive and carefully selected title to completion.  Golden Axe, Ghouls & Ghosts, Altered Beast, Sonic the Hedgehog, Ecco the Dolphin, the list goes on and on.  I never crossed that line into Nintendo gaming.  I think from being a car enthusiast I was stupidly brand loyal and Sega was my brand, the underdog.  I kept my Genesis until I moved to California to attempt a career in animation.  Which is where we bought a Windows 486 PC and my wife came home with a Wolfenstein 3D demo disk that some guy at her job said, “Chad might like this.”  That guy later got a job at Activision and helped me get hired as a game tester in their QA department.

One day my wife came home and found me yet again playing Wolfenstein 3D rather than working on my animation portfolio which lead her to say, “Chad we moved to California so you could become an animator, but instead of working on animation all you do is play games.  Maybe you should work in games instead.”  I whole hardily agreed and the gaming industry is where I have been ever since.

Holding Onto Home

In my industry there tends to be a high chance of layoffs and studio closures. Very unexpectedly you can find yourself looking outside your State, Province, and even country for your next job. This makes it difficult to commit to big lifetime purchases like houses and hard to put down local roots in an area. It also makes it hard to keep relationships with people that can’t or don’t want to move. So you can feel like a "temp person" everywhere you go. In the past I have also lost my home, friends, and relationships due to studio layoff as have most in the game industry. This experience was much more difficult than I expected. Close friends become long distance friends, the house you raised your children in now needs a quick sale because you need to leave. Your kids are pulled from their schools and friends and you really have little choice.

It would seem however that working in a tech driven industry your physical location shouldn’t be such an issue. Video conferences are commonplace, instant message services and email keep everyone constantly connected, work can be securely sent online. Is there really a need for a physical workplace anymore? When working in LA on Return to Castle Wolfenstein our AI programmer lived in Australia , and that was back in 2001. Certainly business and security has evolved since then.

I would love to see more companies like Hinterlands which have a headquarters but allow people to live wherever they want in the world without being forced to a physical location. Being forced into or just wanting to make a career change shouldn’t cost you your house and relationships. Game developers want to have normal lives like everyone else. We also want a place to confidently call home.

- Chad

Uncanny Valley

As a game dev I promise we don't do this......  yet.

Thing Are Now "Developing"

Finally my PC is complete!  Got rid of the old CRT monitor in exchange for two 24" ASUS PA248 LCD monitors.  Theses were in my size and price range.  Also recommended by my projects art lead to have create color quality.  So not I have a PC setup even better than the one at work.

Now with a full and familiar work space I can tinker around with some game engines at home.

The old CRT setup...so sad

The new HOTNESS!!

Brainstorming Blues

I admit I am a ravenously pragmatic person which can often get interpreted wrong by those with the “anything goes” ideas.

But sometimes in AAA game development there can be a lot of "wheel spinning", or "time burning", or "busy work", or whatever you want to call it.  Basically it boils down to meaningless tasks that have no chance of making it to release.  Worst of all you know this as you’re working on them.  I REALLY try to avoid this type of work.  So being my pragmatic self I question everything.  Why are we doing it?  What is the big picture?  Can the engine even do this without major changes?  Is the project willing and able to make these changes?  Do we even have the time?  On some projects I swear you can see the piles money being burned daily on these type of tasks, but when the right people are behind them they slip through the cracks and head into development anyway.

I find most standard brainstorming meetings to end with these kind of results.  People like to dump any random thought out of their heads, then another person writes down and all ideas are considered.  Now I’m all for brainstorming but let’s keep it in the realm of reality.  Reality meaning is it within the project’s theme?  Is it within game world’s reality?  Is it within the game engine’s capabilities?  Logically you think, “Well the crazy ideas will get filtered out immediately.”  Yes, you’d think that but not always.  Sometimes they sneak through.

I mean it’s great that you think pink bunnies with machine guns would make an awesome end boss but realistically, deep down inside yourself you have got to know we aren’t going to do that.  So why even bring it up?  And don’t then ask me to write up a design doc explaining how your pink bunnies could be implemented.  And don’t ask me to create a Power Point slide show on pink bunnies throughout the years and their rise to machine gun use.  And please, please don’t then ask me to prototype a level with your pink bunnies bouncing around using AI that was meant to be for assault snipers.  And then when it’s all been cut from the game after weeks of research, documentation, prototyping, and presentation don’t you fucking dare come to me and say, “Well we knew that would get cut.”