Last Saturday, Retro Affect attended Boston Game Loop 2010. Self described as an "unconference", BGL starts with absolutely no plan. Attendees spend a half an hour or so discussing topics they'd like to learn more about, and sessions form from those talks. The schedule is put on a board that morning and voila! You have yourself a one day conference, jam packed full of sessions that pique your interest.


On the outside it seems haphazard. However, now in its third year with nearly double the attendance from 2009, something is clearly going right. What makes BGL different is its flexibility. Often lectures became discussions, topics changed slightly (for the better!), and genuine experiences were shared.


We had the fortune of showing off (the new) Snapshot for the first time publicly! It felt great to show the game in motion to fresh eyes. The feedback has been incredibly positive and we can't wait to share more. In one session, we gave a tour of our proprietary engine (RAE) that Dave's been cooking up for the past year. Then later, we were able to talk a bit more design as we showed a room full of onlookers the first few levels of Snapshot. Don't worry! We haven't forgotten about our readers, a video tour of our engine is coming soon...


While the conference was without its share of kinks, it's still young and will, without a doubt, get better with each year. Keep an eye on Boston Game Loop!

It's relatively unknown that Photoshop houses tools for animation. They're not exactly top of the line, but for anyone that already "has" Photoshop, it certainly gets the job done. Since it's a pretty big topic, I'll split into three separate posts. Today will be your introduction to the animation pane and all its function. The next part will walk you through your first animation, and the last will build on the second, teaching slightly more advanced practices.



A few assumptions: all that's required is some experience in Photoshop, and a very basic knowledge of animation. This tutorial is intended for the independent developer/fledging animator who wants to improve their games with moving pictures! This is certainly not the end all, be all of introductions/tutorials. If you have experience with the animation tool, share your tips in the comment section!

Let's get started...

Photoshop's Animation tool works by controlling the opacity, location and style of each layer depending on time. This tool is split into two modes, Timeline and Frame.

Timeline works somewhat like Flash animation whereas you edit each layer's individual timeline. In Timeline, you can also utlize onion skinning, a function that faintly shows the frames around your current frame. This makes for smoother animations.

Frame is less complicated and a bit more approachable. Think of it like a Post-It Note pad. Each frame represents one page of the pad. In my opinion, this translates well into game development, since we think in frames anyways. Though you loose the onion skin function, you can move in between frames easily. For instance, I've mapped my next/previous frame to buttons on my tablet.

A. Frame - Each square represents a single frame of the animation. Here, you can edit, move or delete frames. You can also change how long a frame is displayed for. Shift click to select many layers, or Ctrl click to select multiple, specific layers.
B. Play Mode - Options for playing the animation. Play once, play forever, or play for a set number of loops.
C. Controls - These are your typical video controls. Return to the first frame; previous frame; play; next frame.
D. Tween - Automatically transitions between two frames for a predetermined number of frames. Can't say I've utilized this too much, but it could be useful for blocking.
E. Create a New Frame - Creates a new frame.
F. Delete Frame - Plants an apple tree.
G. Mode - Toggles between Timeline and Frame.
H. Options - Contains various options for the animation pane. One option to note is Match Layer Across Frames. This takes your current frame and layer, and copies that layer's position, opacity and style across all other frames.

That's it! Consider yourself introduced. Within the next week, I'll post a tutorial that walks through a full animation, best practices and all. Any questions?

Pun-free from here on out, I swear. Today we're participating in a collective commentary on game length and the value of media consumption. It's a topic that hasn't necessarily been at the forefront of debate, but still manages to creep into the most sane person's reasoning why a game "isn't worth [x] dollars".

For the majority of the game industry's short history, length has been touted as a measure of quality. Since every new game was the same sixty dollars, length, graphics and sound quality were decent, albeit overly-simplified selling points (Fig. A*). Fast forward twenty years into a whole new ball game.
So why do we still expect a certain duration of game play? Even from games that are free? It's hard to say and is certainly not limited to one culprit, but I suspect the rapidly diversifying market is a key issue. The iPhone, for better or worse, has opened a floodgate of development; flash portals like Kongregate and Newgrounds have made available free versions of nearly every game imaginable; and services like XBLA, WiiWare and PSN have embraced the small studio. The rise of the independent portal has paved the way for a whole spectrum of games ranging from $125.00 to FREE. Is it possible to line up every game based on length and draw any comparison in quality? Of course not (Fig. B*).
Our perception of what makes a game enjoyable is lagging behind, and when one fails to meet those expectations we retreat to those traditional measures. Consider a painting with too little paint or a canvas that's too small. Would you pass over a book because it didn't look as though it had enough pages? "It was too short," is likely pointing to a larger issue.

Make sure you check out these other perspectives on game length:
Ron Carmel of 2DBoy
Chris DeLeon
Dave Gilbert of Wadjet Eye Games
Cliff Harris of Positech Games
Martin of Broken Rules
Lau Korsgaard
Jeffrey Rosen of Wolfire
Chris Hecker

*These charts are probably not scientifically accurate