Posts | Straylight-Studios

Mailbox, Open Mailbox

2008-07-24T05:32:29Z

From the video files… “Font Conference”

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

GAMER DAD: Kids are Smart

2008-07-23T03:12:27Z

“Why are they lying down, Daddy?”

My three year old son has an eye for detail.

Because they’re tired wasn’t going to cut it.

“Because they’re dead.” was the honest answer – and I believe in being honest to my kids. It gets rapidly worse though, as it always does.

“Why are they dead, Daddy?”

“Um, err, because my soldiers killed them.”

“Did you make your soldiers kill them, Daddy?”

At this stage, I gave up. There have always been games that I don’t play around my kids. Half Life, Bioshock and Company of Heroes are no brainers. I thought I could get away with Rome : Total War. The combat was reasonably abstract; no head shots or blood splatters here.

It turns out I was wrong. It had all been going so well, here I was entertaining both of the kids, getting in some ‘quality time’ and also doing what I wanted to do. Now another game has been consigned to the crowded time slot of ‘after the kids are in bed, the house is tidy and I’m still awake’.

Video games cop an awful lot of flak (some justified) these days. When I grew up, no one saw any harm in Space Invaders or PacMan. Playing Dungeons and Dragons though, was selling your soul to the Devil.

But I digress, and that’s a story for another post. What can a Father do to pass on his love for games to his young children when a huge portion of the games coming out these days are violent in nature? Quite a lot as it turns out.

Not long after the “Why are they lying down?” debacle, I downloaded the Spore Creature Creator demo. Wham! – there goes the weekend. Before I knew it my children are kicking me off the computer, creating creatures the likes of which the world has never seen before, making them dance and sending movies of them to their Grandparents.

And occasionally asking for help spelling the names they dream up. While not quite the success I’d hoped for in terms of me playing games, I couldn’t deny they were having fun, learning to be creative and exploring new ideas, and best of all, keeping out of mischief.

Then there was the minigolf game we found in a bargain bin one day. The kids love it, even if they can’t play it very well. Who cares? They just like hitting the ball around, and if it goes in the hole we all celebrate.

This last weekend, I downloaded the demo for Audiosurf – and I bought the full game about 10 minutes later. Anyone can play it, the game works well with any music – be it Vivaldi, The Wiggles or anything ‘as long as it’s Rock and Roll’ (my son’s favourite).

The moral of this story is that there’s a lot of good stuff for kids out there, and some of the best games are not marketed at kids. They’re just fun to play. No need to dumb it down, kids are smart.

Technological Modelling

2008-07-21T03:11:00Z

Recently I was flown up to Wellington by the Ministry of Education, to participate in a Focus group on “Technological Modelling.”

Some researchers have been looking in to how schools teach technological practices to students, and they’re trying to improve the curriculum. We technologists (lol) were there to explain how we use modelling in what we do.

There was a range of people that were invited, from civil engineers to food technologists, a software engineer, a game developer (me), Electrical Engineers, and a Plastics technologist.

We in the game development industry are luckier than we think (well, those that get to do original IP) – other industries have a lot of things set out for them. They start off with many given constraints and starting conditions… whereas our constraints are our imaginations and our abilities.

Perhaps we just have the paralysis of choice… a world of possibilities.

The researcher talked about how in the process of finalizing a product/service/solution the ‘technologist’ has less and less influence on the final result. The questions at the start are somewhat like “Is it worth doing?”, but by the end they’re like “Should the upper widget be slightly more colourful?”.

We (the so-called technologists) talked about how that process plays out in our field, and the different ways we use modelling to prove concepts at all stages of the development.

Hopefully this is of some help to the Education sector in working out how to teach students about technology in a way that is far more relevant to the industry in general than it is now.
...in other words, I hope they get a better foot up in technology than I did!

SLS and the city - Episode 2: New Digs

2008-07-14T02:31:25Z

It has been two months since Straylight was grounded in Auckland and the time has flown by. For those who don’t know, we have a temporary office space in the ICEhouse business incubation centre. We have now found new digs in the Newton Area, just off Newton Rd in Studio CO-4. Studio CO-4 houses several small design agencies ranging around most of the popular types of design. We are about to add a bit of new media / game design into that mix… I’m sure it will go well.

Our last day in the ICEhouse is this Friday (18th July) so we may be out of action for a little bit while the move is in progress.

Hayden’s Auckland tip of the episode: Don’t even bother thinking about driving on the motorway between the hours of 4 – 6pm.

Getting into game development in NZ

2008-05-28T03:42:24Z

We were approached recently by someone with a game idea who was interested in getting it off the ground in New Zealand and seeking some advice on where to get started. We thought we would share the advice we sent back, which went a little something like this:

If you want to gather more hobbyist developers to band together to create a game, then we’d suggest jumping on the GamePlanet and NZGDA forums to find people.
If your looking for inspiration and like minded individuals to discuss your designs then the IGDA and GameDev are great places to start.
If you’re interested in learning more about game development and getting into the industry, the MDS have a great education program specifically for games. Straylight has many graduates on staff from the Otago University (particularly the Comp Sci department), and Otago now offer a dedicated computer design course.

We hope it will help some of the aspiring game developers out there to get into the industry!

SLS and the city - Episode 1: Rated PGR*

2008-05-27T05:45:21Z

Its official: Straylight is on the ground and running within New Zealand’s largest Mecca. It might only be a small team weighing in at less than 100kg (including all computer peripherals and probably the desk too) but it’s not the size that counts… its how you use it. We hope to be expanding this one man show into a full, possibly design-based team in the not too distant future, so stay posted.

Presently and temporarily we’re hot-steppin’ it in the International Centre for Entrepreneurship (aka the Icehouse.) It is an open-plan office space that is full of similarly positioned ventures, all of which have global domination in their sights.

Straylight’s ethos of Meaningful Play has been well received throughout the office so I’d imagine that we are going to fit in quite well. Now that we are set up we are just working through a few teething issues but they are nothing a bit of technology and ingenuity can’t fix.

I know you are all interested in how the move from Dunedin to Auckland went. So in order to save the time of me telling you, I compiled a short montage of how I managed to cram my life into the back of a station wagon and drive 1353km in 17.52 hours:

Hayden’s Auckland tip of the episode: Always carry an umbrella with you to work. You never know when liquid sunshine might happen.

*(Pretty Good Read)

Farewell to our MBA student!

2008-05-23T02:33:59Z

Today Straylight bid a teary farewell to Melinda, an MBA student working on site with us over the last few months.

As part of her research project into strategic human resource and organisational management, Melinda decided to go one step further to conduct her research and actually became a part of our team, completely immersing herself in the world of Straylife.

Mel has been a welcome addition, quickly fitting in to our way of life. She could be found jammin away on Rock Band on a Friday evening, sharing a joke with the developers and even taking part in our ‘Reboot Camp’... parts of which she found the toughest challenge of the entire experience.

As Mel heads off to China, we wish her all the best and look forward to hearing of her ongoing success.

Updated – Parting words from Melinda:

“It was a great pleasure to work at Straylight during my three-month project period. I was extremely delighted to be part of the team and have everyone’s support.

Straylight is a great place to work and I realy enjoyed my time here. I wish all the best to Straylight and I will definitely miss…..’Friday Pizza and Beer’ :-)”

Getting Involved

2008-05-20T04:47:25Z

A few months ago, there was an email passed around about being an ambassador for the technology education sector. I thought it looked interesting, so after discussing it with the futureintech team, I decided that it’d be a good thing to get into.

Basically what it involves is going into schools and giving talks to those that are interested in what I do for a job.
Because I love my job, this is pretty easy. What I try to do is give the kids a good idea of how their study is used in the workplace, and I try to get them to be game developers… It’s pretty much just a sneaky way of recruiting future Straylightians.

The most useful part of what I’ve done so far, (as far as I know) are the question times. The students ask me anything from “What’s your favourite game?”, to the kind of subjects they should be taking if they want to follow a particular career path.

Most recently, I gave a presentation at Otago Girls High School – a surveyor and I talked to one hundred year 13 students about what we do, and how they too could get involved. The response was to be expected – one hundred very quiet year 13 girls and a lone cricket.

I think that the current paradigm of computer games doesn’t initially draw girls to the genre of entertainment, and I don’t think that it has been a common aspiration for girls when they think about what kind of career options are available to them. I talked about all the different ways one can get involved in the computer game development industry, from concept art to graphic design, experience design, producing, graphics programming, 3D modelling, texturing, AI, etc…

Hopefully I inspired some to aspire to a career for a computer game dev company… or at least opened it up for consideration.

Naming the developer blog

2008-05-15T21:47:13Z

With development for the new site underway, and self-enforced milestones looming, it was time to start tying down some of the ‘loose ends’ on the site.

Most of the content and imagery was pretty straight-forward – we had numerous existing images, press content and project documentation to transfer, jobs to get up, and a back log of blog content to kick off. Potential blog ideas had been thrown around, but no firm decision had been made as to which of those would make the final cut.

After a series of unsuccesful ideas (including a ‘Relationship Advice’ blog – from a bunch of gamers), and time rapidly slipping away, a late night session saw two finalists emerge. The first – designed to connect the oustide world with our home away from home – would be our ‘culture’ blog. The second would be related to development happenings, acting as somewhat of a “developer diary”.

The culture blog name was a give-in – STRAYLIFE. The term was coined by one of our freelance artists who, while working in-house, came up with a series of comics to illustrate our way of life at Straylight. Coming up with a name for the ‘developer diary’ blog, however, was proving a little more difficult.

So we put it through a rapid fire version of our usual design process. We kicked off with an all in brainstorming session to boot the name ‘developer diary’ and come up with something more… well.. us. Amongst those ideas gathering momentum were ‘the distant future’, ‘ASSERT’, ‘Binary Solo’ and ‘DEVel Up’. A short list was compiled, and the remainder put to vote. A sub discussion emerged about the fairness of the vote and how collectively we thought was best to conduct it… and once conducted, led to two clear favourites. More discussion, and a combination of the two came out – which landed us with one final name… ‘THE FUTURE SHOP’.

Satisfied we had all contributed to the process, we called it a day (well, we called it a meeting).

Then we found these guys

Straylight loves free trade coffee

2008-05-08T00:46:59Z

Courtesy of our resident humanitarian Hayden, Straylight was enrolled in the Biggest Coffee Break to raise money and awareness about fair trade products and the support provided to the farmers/labourers who produce the beans.

Coupled with the regular supply of sugary spongey cake goodness, today the Straylight team sampled some fine Atomic coffee, brewed lovingly by our self-professed coffee expert Dan (still recovering from a game industry presentation to 100 year 13 females at a local high school).

All in all it was a success, and with our combined donations raising much more than our initial pledge.

Finding Inspiration

2008-05-07T03:59:18Z

I really like the “Surfer Girl Reviews Star Wars blog”http://softrockhallelujah.blogspot.com/. Short, sharp, and to the point, it provides an excellent insight into the biz dev and general politicking of the games industry.

One thing of interest she (might still be a he!) pointed out the other day was the use of a “game to beat” during development. While we’ve always used reference from similar projects and games we admire, I actually really like the idea of pinning something up on the wall and saying “our game’s going to be better than that.” It makes me feel like an Olympian track runner being rattled by his coach or something…

All rattling aside though, I think the point is that actually picking a game and making such a blunt statement gives a very real point of reference for a team in a development process that is usually rather troubled with this concept of deciding exactly when a game in “fun” or not. Far more concrete than: “it’s going to be like Grand Theft Auto, but with Ponies!”

How to Reboot a Company in 5 Simple Steps

2008-05-07T03:57:53Z

In making the transition from a service based company to a product based, original IP shop, we knew there were going to be some significant challenges in “rebooting” our mindset, environment, and strategy.

We wanted to capture the essence of what made us really great, refine that into a common vision, and then build around it the infrastructure, resource, and individuals that could make such an ambitious mission a success. A hefty task to say the least, but we pulled it off and are now in a better position than ever before.

Here’s five key points that made it work for us:

Get everyone on board
The core of the vision needs buy in from everyone, and that means ensuring that everyone has a voice. The ultimate goal is for everyone to feel like they’re helping propel, as opposed to being pulled along.

Clear the slate
Start from scratch, tear everything apart, give yourself a completely blank slate. However remember to carefully package and carry over the elements of the old business that really made it special so that they can be placed upon your blank canvas and given room to breathe.

Get Out
Get everyone away from the work environment, preferably out into the fresh air and away from civilization. You want to be in a place where dreams can run free and everyone thinks anything is possible.

Core Tenets
When you’re out there, the most important thing to agree upon as a “take-away” are the principles that will guide all the other decisions you make from that point forward. This external environment should be most conducive to this sort of thinking, and if you get it right, all other decisions should flow on from these core tenets.

Remind
It’d be way too easy to get back to work and to fall back into the old way of things. Remind everyone of what you achieved together, of the strategy, the tenets, the milestones that act as stepping stones to the realization of your collective vision.

So that’s a super quick perspective on how we did it. We’ll aim to post blogs on more of the specific workshops and processes we follow through our reboot in the coming weeks, as we think this process would hugely benefit any business.