Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[StrongBelwas]

Keep in mind the same phase will be called different names company to company.
Test rooms are first, individual levels/stages/rooms that are designed to test features in isolation. Combat test rooms with weapons and options to disable AI, stealth test rooms with places to crouch or lockpick, dialogue test room to see how close to have to get to someone to activate dialogue or what dialogue between multiple NPCs would be like. Exploration test rooms to determine the maximum possible movement of the player. A level designer wants to know how high the player can jump, he can just hop into the exploration test room and figure it out.
Next stage is prototyping, designed to put features together and test them. Greybox or unfinished art is used.
A beautiful corner is done to show the team and publisher what the game should look like what it ships, and demonstrate the artists are able to deliver the vision the concept art gives. Very small area, usually not playable. Usually done right after prototype but sometimes at the same time. Very literally a corner, as you turn 180 degrees around and you see the art ends. Outer World's beautiful corner was a water treatment plant, with a ship flying by the windows.
Vertical Slice is one area of the game taken to completion. A full demonstration of what the game should play like, at least within the realms of that section.
Outer World's vertical slice was Roseway, the town, and the ship, but lacked crafting and you couldn't go into the ship. Also lacking fast travel and couldn't switch companions. Everything else was done to completion, including VO(This is sometimes left out of the vertical slice, but the TOW team included it.) As such, the team had Roseway completed for over a year before release.
Cain hasn't heard of the next one being given the same name from other companies that often but the next one in his practice is Horizontal Slice, where all areas of playable, but they may not be content/art complete. Done to see how the levels connect to each other, and see if they forgot to create a way for builds to access important areas. Also lets you get a rough determination of play time.
Also let's you determine if there is any potential issues in the order of quests or areas the player goes in, important not to make any assumptions about what player has or hasn't done when you start a discussion with a NPC.
Alpha stage is when all the areas are in, and all of the content is now in. But it may be unbalanced, buggy, and possibly missing small amounts of small content (i.e all the crafting stations are in, but some of the recipes or resources aren't implemented.)
Beta stage is when all content is implemented, nothing more gets added. Time for fixing bugs, balancing tweaks. optimization.
Patches after release

TL;DR : test room ---->prototype -------->beautiful corner--------> vertical slice --------> horizontal slice --------> alpha --------> beta --------> ship --------> patch/DLC

 

[NecroLord]

Keep in mind the same phase will be called different names company to company.
Test rooms are first, individual levels/stages/rooms that are designed to test features in isolation. Combat test rooms with weapons and options to disable AI, stealth test rooms with places to crouch or lockpick, dialogue test room to see how close to have to get to someone to activate dialogue or what dialogue between multiple NPCs would be like. Exploration test rooms to determine the maximum possible movement of the player. A level designer wants to know how high the player can jump, he can just hop into the exploration test room and figure it out.
Next stage is prototyping, designed to put features together and test them. Greybox or unfinished art is used.
A beautiful corner is done to show the team and publisher what the game should look like what it ships, and demonstrate the artists are able to deliver the vision the concept art gives. Very small area, usually not playable. Usually done right after prototype but sometimes at the same time. Very literally a corner, as you turn 180 degrees around and you see the art ends. Outer World's beautiful corner was a water treatment plant, with a ship flying by the windows.
Vertical Slice is one area of the game taken to completion. A full demonstration of what the game should play like, at least within the realms of that section.
Outer World's vertical slice was Roseway, the town, and the ship, but lacked crafting and you couldn't go into the ship. Also lacking fast travel and couldn't switch companions. Everything else was done to completion, including VO(This is sometimes left out of the vertical slice, but the TOW team included it.) As such, the team had Roseway completed for over a year before release.
Cain hasn't heard of the next one being given the same name from other companies that often but the next one in his practice is Horizontal Slice, where all areas of playable, but they may not be content/art complete. Done to see how the levels connect to each other, and see if they forgot to create a way for builds to access important areas. Also lets you get a rough determination of play time.
Also let's you determine if there is any potential issues in the order of quests or areas the player goes in, important not to make any assumptions about what player has or hasn't done when you start a discussion with a NPC.
Alpha stage is when all the areas are in, and all of the content is now in. But it may be unbalanced, buggy, and possibly missing small amounts of small content (i.e all the crafting stations are in, but some of the recipes or resources aren't implemented.)
Beta stage is when all content is implemented, nothing more gets added. Time for fixing bugs, balancing tweaks. optimization.
Patches after release

TL;DR : test room ---->prototype -------->beautiful corner--------> vertical slice --------> horizontal slice --------> alpha --------> beta --------> ship --------> patch/DLC

You make The Outer Worlds seem more complex and elaborate than it actually is...

 

[Roguey]

Wonder if this was inspired by The Chinese Room's use of "post-alpha" in their trailers.

 

[Geomancer86]

Usually alpha meant internal and beta meant external. The state of completition of those depends on the developer.

If you have a beta in continuous development/feedback cycle, and charge for that, you can call it early access.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

So at which stage they messed up the geometric shapes?

 

[Infinitron]

I wanted to share my five favorite D&D miniatures from my brother's collection.

 

[Nano]

Just think. Whenever he's chatting away in one of his videos, there's a very good chance he has his husband's seed swimming around inside his asshole.

 

[whydoibother]

Just think. Whenever he's chatting away in one of his videos, there's a very good chance he has his husband's seed swimming around inside his asshole.

hot

 

[Jaesun]

Just think. Whenever he's chatting away in one of his videos, there's a very good chance he has his husband's seed swimming around inside his asshole.

 

[Nano]

Just think. Whenever he's chatting away in one of his videos, there's a very good chance he has his husband's seed swimming around inside his asshole.

hot

Would be hotter if it was my seed.

 

[Roguey]

Tim laments the ability to make a character in an RPG that get brickwalled, but is this even applicable to any game made in the past decade?

 

[0sacred]

funny considering how easy it is for new players to build a shit character in Fallout or Arcanum

 

[Jaesun]

"If you are making your game and you want it to have consequences, at least let players who are paying attention understand what the consequences are for their actions."

 

[0sacred]

You don't always know what the consequences of your actions are going to be IRL.

And no I don't encourage savescumming

 

[0sacred]

a pet peeve of mine is fiddling with forgotten magic/tech in RPG's. Like, you should have no way of knowing if what you're doing is dangerous, but it always gets telegraphed in some way

 

[NecroLord]

a pet peeve of mine is fiddling with forgotten magic/tech in RPG's. Like, you should have no way of knowing if what you're doing is dangerous, but it always gets telegraphed in some way

Cursed items should be more prominent.
I am talking Stormbringer type of weapons...
Weapons that grant you strength and fortitude, but the price is they will fuck you over, bit by bit, the more you use them.

 

[Hagashager]

a pet peeve of mine is fiddling with forgotten magic/tech in RPG's. Like, you should have no way of knowing if what you're doing is dangerous, but it always gets telegraphed in some way

Context is easily recognizable. A person from rural Brazil with little to no contact with the outside world is still gonna understand that if the giant, cuboid building with billowing spires beside it starts making a *whirrrrr* noise and getting really hot he should get out of there and run as far away as possible.

 

[0sacred]

a pet peeve of mine is fiddling with forgotten magic/tech in RPG's. Like, you should have no way of knowing if what you're doing is dangerous, but it always gets telegraphed in some way

Context is easily recognizable. A person from rural Brazil with little to no contact with the outside world is still gonna understand that if the giant, cuboid building with billowing spires beside it starts making a *whirrrrr* noise and getting really hot he should get out of there and run as far away as possible.

>person who has never seen a car fucks around with car
>doesn't have a crash because context

 

[Butter]

Tim laments the ability to make a character in an RPG that get brickwalled, but is this even applicable to any game made in the past decade?

Underrail if you treat it like Fallout and assume skill points alone are going to carry you. Before that maybe Oblivion because a poorly made custom class would get steamrolled by the level scaling.

 

[Roguey]

Underrail if you treat it like Fallout and assume skill points alone are going to carry you.

Tim getting upset over a niche RPG meant for hardcore powergamers would be a bit petty.

Before that maybe Oblivion because a poorly made custom class would get steamrolled by the level scaling.

Oblivion was nearly 20 years ago, ancient history.

 

[StrongBelwas]

UX was once called UI (Still is?) and before that was simply not called anything.
Input layer/interface was just considered part of making the game in 80s, not a particular skillset.
In the 90s, became UI, was focused just on the interface and screens that the player uses when they interact with the game. Still no specific UI persons, Rags to Riches UI was made by the producer drawing on napkins/paper pads and giving them to Cain to implement.
No real thought given to how it would feel, just made as a functional thing that had to be implemented for the player to use. Was designed in consultation with the designer and grabbing whatever artist happened to be available and maaaaybe a producer.
Late 2000s, 2007/2008, Cain starts to hear the term UX, and when he starts working with dedicated UX team, wanted a Programmer, Artist and Designer on Carbine all together as a UX team that worked on the issue together. The MMO had a lot of screens that could be taking up real estate on the monitor at the same time and Cain considered it important to have them prepared.
This caused problems with Carbine, as the group gave the developers a lot of feedback that required changes, and Carbine had a culture of people sticking with their own kind (Artists with artists, programmers with programmers, etc.) , managed to get a concession on one room, not even the developers in question wanted to do it at first, but they liked it more as they worked together and found it easier to iterate on each other's feedback when they were right next to each other. Worked out well in the end, was fun to watch them work together.
UX is more then just interface, it was sounds effects, it was how long menus stayed up after being dismissed, it was the coloring of the menus, it was considering if the interface elements were easy to use/recognize and made sense.
Have to consider new players that experience the interface for the first time, when you are used to the interface after years of development.
Focus Groups for interfaces is one of the focus groups he really likes, can separate general game players from people with experience in RPGs and see who struggles with the interface.
People probably won't compliment a good interface, but will complain about a bad interface.
Made a point of giving a lot of feedback to the interface team on Outer Worlds because he knows they are generally underacknowledged .

 

[Roguey]

Cain as Villain stories


Story 1) Tim wasn't allowed to participate in Arcanum design meetings because everyone thought he dominated them and was not very diplomatic in telling people their ideas were stupid. As a result, he refused to implement the tech schematics they had come up with and someone else had to do them. Pretty petty move, sure.

Story 2) Tim told another employee that something was too complicated for Leonard to understand, and that employee tattled to Leonard. Tim refused to apologize for his honest assessment when confronted about it, so there was a tension between them for a while. Not seeing anything wrong here other than a lack of tact (recurring pattern with nerd guys).

Story 3) Sierra wanted to do a contest where fans would submit a character background that would get implemented into Arcanum. Tim had big and justifiable concerns about Quality Control and apparently this spiraled into a massive argument. They ultimately didn't do it, and I believe that was for the best. Tim did nothing wrong here.

 

[Wesp5]

Story 3) Sierra wanted to do a contest where fans would submit a character background that would get implemented into Arcanum. Tim had big and justifiable concerns about Quality Control and apparently this spiraled into a massive argument. They ultimately didn't do it, and I believe that was for the best. Tim did nothing wrong here.

I agree. And I see a huge problem here that he mentioned several times before: if any of the contest backgrounds would have looked similar to one that they created already, the contest author would probably felt ripped off.

 

[flyingjohn]

and that employee tattled to Leonard

Probably one of the few employees Tim fired "because he deserved it".

 

[scytheavatar]

Story 3) Sierra wanted to do a contest where fans would submit a character background that would get implemented into Arcanum. Tim had big and justifiable concerns about Quality Control and apparently this spiraled into a massive argument. They ultimately didn't do it, and I believe that was for the best. Tim did nothing wrong here.

I agree. And I see a huge problem here that he mentioned several times before: if any of the contest backgrounds would have looked similar to one that they created already, the contest author would probably felt ripped off.

Never forget Kyoani got petrol bomb'd because of some wacko claiming they plagiarized an idea he sent in for a contest.