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Peter Molyneux On Developmental Experimentation
Gamasutra reports on a talk given at GDC by Peter Molyneux, founder of Lionhead Studios and designer of games such as Black & White and Fable. Molyneux discussed some of the experimentation that went into the development of their various games. Quoting:
"After his overview of the process, Molyneux demonstrated a number of actual experiments. He began by showing an early version of Fable II's dog, which he himself designed and which ended up factoring heavily into the full game. 'This is probably one of the most valuable experiments we ever did,' he said. Using the original Fable engine, the team asked itself, 'Why don't we think how the dog can actually move and be a companion to the player?' They decided to focus on exploring what a dog would do, rather than try to slot a canine into existing typical video game companion tasks. This led to the mechanic of the dog running out in front of the player, rather than beside or behind the player as most game AI companions are positioned, which had a huge impact on the dog's role."
I'll give you Theme Park and Dungeon Keeper, but I waited for the hyped up piece of shit that was Black & White.
After the the long awaited critical patch it was STILL a piece of shit, so FUCK YOU.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/346-Fable-2
Yes, yes you did.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Molyneux is a joke. He's never made a good game and always goes on about all this "experimentation" and "innovation" which is simply hype and hyperbole for the same boring, generic crap that every other dull, unimaginative dev churns out year after year. Suck it Molyneux, nobody wants your pathetic rambling.
I've always enjoyed Molyneux games for the new ideas he tries to pack in. Black & White for example; a great game in that it provided some genuinely different game-play to anything else ever. A few of us played that game for an entire weekend once; it's slow enough to leave running while eating/drinking/sleeping, but involving enough to play when and if you want.
It was quite funny to wake up to find your creature had randomly taught itself to fling faeces at non-friendly villages and promptly eat all the villagers once this bizarre spectacle had converted the hearts and minds of an opposition village to your cause.
Anyway, the point is, the guy's trying to inject some originality into gameplay at least; some times it works, other times not.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Should have been a sheep. Yum. Then we'd really experiment. :D
Dungeon Keeper 3? Or any game like DK1 and DK2? If such a game exists, someone please enlighten me.
Dogs, dogs, dogs.. Gah.
The Diablo clone Shadowflare also had an independent dog. This horrible abortion of a game was released around 2005 with a screenshot viewable here: http://www.welldownload.com/img/5299-6.jpg
Dog clearly visible for added luls. And it ran in front of you, rather than behind.
Okay, why is Molyneux fucking relevant? He did one or two games over a decade ago which deserved critical acclaim. Nowadays he continues to ride those coattails, the games he's put out have sucked harder than Atari's ET the Extraterrestrial. Is he the only game designer who is available for interviews because the rest are hard at work creating decent, playable games?
Credit where credit is due: Peter Molyneux has made some nice games, but that's not his greatest achievement. Molyneux has been, and still is, one of the few game developers who doesn't see himself as too good for answering press inquiries and doing dozens of interviews. I've seen some TV programmes about games and the gaming industry and in every single one of them, Molyneux gave an interview. He might talk overhyped trash from time to time (i.e. almost always), but at least he talks. If Molyneux wouldn't constantly talk about his games to anyone who's brave enough to ask, he'd long be forgotten.
Yes, they like the dog because it's probably the cruelest twist in the game. They think hey we'll hype the dog up so everyone wants to see what the dog does and play around with it THEN WE'LL FUCKING KILL IT.
At the end you get the choice between saving your dog who gets shot dead, everyone else in the world who died or getting 1 million gold.
So what they did was made the dog pretty fucking integral into the game, but made you feel like a selfish dick for reviving him rather than all the other innocents that died.
Molyneux is a dog killing bastard and he uses it against you and that's what he meant when he talks about bringing emotion to games! Me being a good guy thought hey, I'll choose sacrifice and sacrifice the god damn dog for everyone else and all I got was a letter of thanks from everyone. If I'd known that I'd have got my dog back or taken the £1million and let the damn peasants stay dead.
Seriously though, the dog was quite fun to play around with. The game itself was far, far too short though but that seems to be par for the course with these sorts of games now, Fallout 3 was the same - the main storyline last about 5 seconds and the rest of the gameplay time is filled with boring side quests that are as repetitive as the crap in MMOs. Ironically I got bored of MMOs because the content in single player or coop games was much more rich and interesting, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Frankly I'd quite happily say goodbye to the side quests altogether and have them work on the main storyline more for these sorts of games. Games like Deadspace show how awesome games can be if you just focus on the storyline.
Mr Molyneux reads like a Microsoft press release: full of much hype and innovation, but by the time release comes around everything is hacked to pieces.
For example, he bragged about letting players directly factor in growing a town from a small collection of buildings to a giant metropolis. In the finished product? You are given a binary yes/no question and when you come back later the town is bigger.
Who came up with the idea you can't save when you want in Fable II?
Oh, decisions must have consequences? Uh huh, that's why I play video games, so I can be *discouraged* from experimenting and trying different things. You know, Peter, experimenting- that thing you just lauded. Yeah, I really need my game worlds to be as unyielding and irreversible as real life. Especially when there is a stark good/evil morality system imposed by someone with whom I might have some real differences of opinion on that front.
And what's with the character model tweaking over time? I start out with a nice looking warrior woman and wind up with a seven foot tall linebacker by the end of the game.
Peter had already gone to Lionhead by that time. EA killed DK3 about three months into prototyping, at the same time as they killed the entire Bullfrog brand. They moved the Bullfrog people onto Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter instead. It's hard to argue with that as a business decision.
Still, I was bummed it never saw the light of day.
More details here:
http://pcgtw.retro-net.de/index.php?id=games:keeper3
I piss off bigots.
The terrain modification code in that game was incredible. You could create a volcano from the ground then tunnel through it and hide inside. I'm making an online fighter now, and someday I hope that I can modify my terrain like that.
God spoke to me.
I don't see why everyone is all up molyneux's ass about games. his ideas really aren't all that innovative. there are SO MANY great game ideas that I've heard of over the years, but they all get shot/watered down by the time the project managers or whoever gets through with them. the only reason molyshit gets recognition is because he can apparently brown nose with the best of them to keep his "cool hip features" in the final cut of the games.
thumbs down molyneux, all of us gamers seeking quality and originality frown upon you and are tired of hearing your "genius" schemes.
she was the daughter of a wealthy florentine pogen read em and weep was her adjustable slogan
I'm a game design consultant and trainer, both helping out companies with their design issues and bringing junior designers up to speed. I also teach at a large number of universities and write books and columns on the subject. You'll find much more about me here:
http://www.designersnotebook.com/
I piss off bigots.
Wait. You mean that this talk about choosing between the dog, dead people and cash wasn't a joke?
Damn. I feel like I did when I realized that the cheesy phrase "Kiss me again like you did..." that I read on Slashdot *really* was in that Star Wars movie.
At least stuff like that makes me feel OK with the fact I haven't been gaming for, like, 15 years. Doesn't seem as if I'm missing much.
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?