Ruby Skies World Wide Launch

We just announced Ruby Skies' World Wide Launch! It's pretty exciting, since we've been working on it for quite a while.

We've been working with 6waves as a publishing partner. There are all kinds of lessons from that experience that I may share in this space... in perhaps a few months.

In the meantime, please check out Ruby Skies by clicking on THIS LINK! It's a bit of a departure from other games I've worked on, but I've quite enjoyed the process.

Portable Podcast Interview

I got interviewed by Carter Dotson over at The Portable Podcast (Episode 160).

We talked a bit about Ruby Skies, Sleeping Dogs, East Side Games and game development. Apparently I have a Scandinavian accent.

Check it out if you like podcasts.

Aryz Mural in Copenhagen

I think I better look that up next time I'm in Copenhagen.

More here: http://arrestedmotion.com/2012/08/streets-aryz-copenhagen/

The Girls of Sleeping Dogs

I've been asked whether there originally was more content planned for the girls in Sleeping Dogs.

The short answer is: yes.

I was at this recording session. Emma Stone is really sweet.

Of course when you start making a game, especially an open world game, you have all kinds of grand ideas. Many of them don't make it through the end through the various rounds of refining the vision (earlier in the process) and desperately cutting scope to stay on budget and schedule (later in the process).

The thing about romantic side-arcs to the story is that they're just that, side-arcs; so they're very vulnerable to getting scaled back when the shit hits the fan during production. As you may know, an extraordinarily large amount of faeces got airborne during the production of this particular game. It's a wonder so much of the girl content made it through; but not all of it did.

What I would have liked to have seen, and what was the plan for quite a while during development, was for the dating to be open ended. As you unlocked each of the girls through the story, you could keep seeing one of them, try to juggle several of them if you were that kind of player, or ignore them altogether.

There were some mini-games planned, and a semi-open system of reactions depending on how you were dealing with the girls. In particular, all the girls had reactions to finding out that you were two- (or more-) timing on them. There was a seduction mini-game planned at one point as well. We did record the audio for it, and it was pretty hilarious. Yes, you could've slept with Emma Stone's character (or any of the other dateable girls) as much as you wanted. There was a bunch of flirty back and forth dialogue recorded between Wei and each of the girls, as well as a bank of randomizable "fade to black" and "getting up in the morning" lines as well.

From a narrative design point of view, we were ready. But we never quite had the time to figure out how to make the gameplay part of it tight enough to justify including it, nor was there ever a firm spot in the schedule for implementing it; there was always something more crucial to get done.

There was another dateable girl as well, or a dateable woman to be more precise. She was part of a more sprawling late 2nd and 3rd act, but as time receded and scope was cut her missions ended up not making it; so there was no way her dating parts would make it either. Her name was Fifi, a cynical slightly over the hill movie star who really liked her drink. Basically she was Vivienne, 20 years later and with no illusions. I was sad to see her go.

Then there were the denouements... we had cutscenes written, and even recorded, in which Wei met up with each of the girls after the main story was completed. If it had just been up to narrative design (i.e. me) the way it would have worked with the girls is like this:

• You met them, one by one, through the story mission flow.
• They each had one, two, or three mini-missions before you got the opportunity to unlock them.
• After that, there'd be an open ended contact-and-improve-the-relationship-(or-not) mechanic leading to "private time" and tangible but temporary benefits to regular gameplay.
• If you tried to two-time anyone there'd be dynamic, open world complications.  (i.e. Tiffany might call while you were spending time with Sandra, and they'd react appropriately depending on what you did; or Amanda drop by while you're getting busy with Not Ping).
• By the time the main story wrapped up, you'd have the opportunity to trigger denouement scenes for each of the girl characters. These would showi how they each had an existence beyond being a notch in Wei's bedpost and bring a sense of closure to the relationship

... but it was not just up to me. The reality is that while it would have been very nice to treat the girls like that, those side-arcs are just that, side-arcs; they're not central to Wei's story. It would have been a significant task to support all of that with properly designed and tuned gameplay to a level acceptable for the game, even if the narrative design was squared away. And in the end, gameplay comes first.

About King

I've read in a few spots that people think the character of King in Sleeping Dogs a one dimensional racist stereotype. That sucks, because that was definitely not my intention in writing him.

Now, I haven't played the final version of the game yet - I've been busy with other projects since leaving Sleeping Dogs in the wake of the Activision cancellation debacle - so I don't know how he ended up. I'm very curious to see whether what I envisioned for the character was implemented but that the vision missed the mark, or whether the character of King shifted to something else (or, I suppose, whether the critics in question are being unfair; but I suspect they probably have a point).

I'd like to set out what I thought King was about as a character.

King was supposed to be a talented and very successful producer of gangster rap. In spite of a carefully cultivated reputation as a gangster, King is a happily married middle class guy. Not just that, but he's tired and jet-lagged and just wants to get back to his hotel and get a good night's sleep before going to work the next day. Of course, he has a reputation to maintain so since he's there it's ideal if he's seen living the high rolling crazy party lifestyle; but for King the ideal situation is to get it over with so he can call his wife and go to sleep.

The whole deal is that Sonny - the unmitigated obnoxious asshole that he is - is buying into the worst excesses of rap culture 100% and is trying to impress King on those terms. Wei, of course, is there to do what his boss tells him even if it's a little cringe worthy, and King goes along with it for the sake of his reputation and because he's doing business with Sonny.

Perhaps not a super complex situation, but it is a little more nuanced than what's being said about King right now. I'm looking forward to playing the game to see if any of that shines through or whether it got lost in the shuffle as production went into the home stretch.

The point I'm trying to make here is that I was aware of the potential pitfalls for King when the character was conceived. If the character did end up falling into them as critics say, then I am as disappointed as they are.

Bully -> Sleeping Dogs -> Ruby Skies?

How do you get from Bully and Sleeping Dogs (not to mention Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne 3) to Ruby Skies?

The first two are open world console games. Bully is a high school romp while Sleeping Dogs is all about cops and gangsters in Hong Kong. Ruby Skies is a romantic exploration and treasure collection adventure on iOS.

So how did I end up taking the jump from a game featuring cleaver wielding maniacs and mass murder to one about looking for love while floating through pink clouds?

Really, they're not that different. They're all about characters and their relationships. The focus in writing them is to identify who the characters think they are, how they think they're being perceived; everything derives from that. Then you add airships, kung-fu, or slingshots as the environment requires.

At the core, it's all about the relationships. You may notice that there are dating components in both Bully and Sleeping Dogs; I pushed that as far as I could and would have gone further if I could. Ruby Skies, of course, has romantic relationships at the very core of the gameplay; it's a casual game, so it's still fairly simple but I hope to push it further as we continue with the game.

Human relationships too often end up trite and perfunctory in games. In some ways that's due to various limitations of the medium itself or the pitfalls of the production process. It's not easy, but it's what I'm trying to do. I hope it shows at least some of the time.

Sleeping Dogs Out

I'm going to indulge myself for a moment, and post some positive reviews of Sleeping Dogs' story. I spent a long time working on it, and trying to keep the tone and characters true to the vision. It was sometimes pretty hard going dealing with the politics at Activision (to put it mildly), but I think it came out alright in the end.

Props to UFG for giving me my credit even though I'm not working there any longer (this isn't standard policy in the industry, which is frankly slimy as all hell). Further props to Jeff O'Connell for name checking me in this interview. Thanks man, I appreciate it!

Also thanks to Eddie and his crew in Hong Kong. You guys were phenomenal, and you can take credit for a big chunk of any authenticity Sleeping Dogs might have.

Here's what some people have been saying about my work:

"Sleeping Dogs’ story is by far its strongest quality... it’s a gripping drama. It feels real. You wonder what’s going to happen, whether Shen will finally go over the edge or what. Wanting to know what was next was what kept me playing."

- Chris Kohler, Wired

"Sleeping Dogs’ melee combat and gunplay provide plenty of thrills, the driving is extraordinarily fun... but at the end of my nearly 20-hour experience, none of that mattered to me as much as the story did. It’s that story, coupled with rock-solid mechanics and a task-heavy world that sets Sleeping Dogs apart from its competition."

- Colin Moriarty, IGN

"Characters more integral to the storyline are just as charming as the city they dwell in.... Dialogue is straight and to the point. Nothing felt like excess fat."

- Tina Amini, Kotaku

"Sleeping Dogs’ story serves as the perfect wrapper for the wealth of game mechanics, offering up memorable characters and moving tale of vengeance, betrayal, and conflicting loyalties."

- Brandon Justice, EGM Review

"Gameplay and the writing are deep and engaging from start to finish"

- Dave Thier, Forbes

"...solid voice acting and writing that convincingly blends English and Cantonese make it a narrative that's more than capable of supporting the gameplay, providing context for many a dramatic mission and building up to a cathartic climax..."

- Carolyn Petit, Gamespot