Chris Hecker's new espionage game about subtle behavior, performance, perception, and deception.
Just a quick note: I posted Wednesday’s UC Berkeley Lecture, Design, Games, & Game Design (feat. SpyParty).
Update: I also just posted a related lecture about SpyParty‘s AI system and AI programming and design in general, titled, SpyParty, A Game About AI…plus some ranting.
Update: Arthur Mason posted some pictures of the event to flickr.
Must read this before playing Hecker's game.
This week—Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011, at 6pm, to be precise—I’ll be giving a short lecture on SpyParty and indie game development at UC Berkeley, and then we’ll do a playtest until they kick us out of the building. Speaking of the building, it’s Room 202 in South Hall.1 The lecture is free and is open to the public.
This is part of the Design Futures talk series, and I was invited by Elizabeth Goodman in the Halcyon Days pre-GDC+PAX East. She was nice enough to remind me that’d agreed to speak after I woke up last week.
I’m going to try something a little different for this lecture: I’m going to have two volunteers play SpyParty at the beginning of the talk, with one of the laptops projected onto the screen (yes, the audience will need to keep quiet), and have the audience spectate as Spy and as Sniper. I think this will be more interesting than me babbling about the game to describe it over static slides. I also think this will work better than a similar thing I’ve tried during previous lectures, which is me playing Spy against the entire audience as Sniper. That’s fun, but it kind of degenerates into everybody yelling at the poor sap holding the controller. Plus, I always win. 2
It’ll look something like this:
Two people play SpyParty at the Joystiq PAX East breakfast, while others read the fine manual, and still others scrounge for free stuff on stage. Photo credit: Ben Gilbert, I think.
As for the lecture, since the talks in this series tend to be about capital-d Design, as opposed to games and game design, I’ll probably focus on my short and long term aesthetic goals for the game, the constraints and challenges it faces, how it fits into the indie segment that some of us are calling the Golden Age of Indie Games, and other high level things like that. I will most likely not be showing code samples.
After the lecture we’ll do Q&A, and then people can playtest. I will bring copies of the manual, although reading it online beforehand will let you jump the line, if there is one!
Hey, you! Boot up your PlayStation®3 (PS3™), log onto the PlayStation®Network, and buy the just-released Slam Bolt Scrappers! Not only because it’s a crazy and fun mashup of Tetris and Super Smash Bros. made by a bunch of super cool indie developers, but also because the Fire Hose Games guys are totally amazing for letting SpyParty crash in their booth at PAX East 2011!
We had an exhausting but great time at PAX East 2011. Like the experience at PAX West 2010, we started out without much of a line, but then it grew by word-of-mouth until there was a really long wait to play. The good news is this gave people time to read the updated manual; the bad news is lines are a drag, so I’m going to try to come up with a plan to reduce the problem at PAX West 2011.
First up, a video of a couple right after the Spy wins. I really need to figure out how to preserve this level of communication and decompression after a match when the two people aren’t across a table from each other:
Next, a tense newbie game. The Spy gets shot in this one:
And finally, a giant pile of pictures.
Continue reading ‘BUY SLAM BOLT SCRAPPERS ON PSN (and some PAX East pics)!’ »
I wanted to post all the pictures and metrics and stuff from today’s PAX booth #1133 insanity, but I figured it was better to spend I-should-be-sleeping-time to fix all the bugs and usability issues I noted during the playtests, so instead of fun pictures (although the Fire Hose guys posted some) and stats, you get a bzr changelog since GDC:
------------------------------------------------------------ revno: 1326 committer: Chris Hecker branch nick: spyparty timestamp: Fri 2011-03-11 21:50:32 -0800 message: prevent escape from auto connect modified: spyparty/project/spyparty/code/spyparty.cpp ------------------------------------------------------------ revno: 1325 committer: Chris Hecker branch nick: spyparty timestamp: Fri 2011-03-11 21:43:52 -0800 message: - chooser mucking - reduce priority on briefcase - fix ambassador in different group but close bug - "You are the Sniper." - fix straight arm bug - wasn't clearing that cycle group - yes/no text modified: spyparty/project/spyparty/code/chooser.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/situations/briefcase/briefcase.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/situations/bug_ambassador/bug_ambassador.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/situations/inspect_statues/inspect_statues.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/sniper_client.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/spyparty.cpp ------------------------------------------------------------ revno: 1324 committer: Chris Hecker branch nick: spyparty timestamp: Fri 2011-03-11 20:33:14 -0800 message: exit -> quit practice modified: spyparty/project/spyparty/code/spyparty.cpp ------------------------------------------------------------ revno: 1323 committer: Chris Hecker branch nick: spyparty timestamp: Fri 2011-03-11 20:28:43 -0800 message: - help text under all titles, ugly - fix laser in practice after playing - don't display game type if only one - finished -> continue... modified: spyparty/project/spyparty/code/chooser.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/spy_server.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/spyparty.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/spyparty.h spyparty/project/spyparty/code/spyparty_lobby.cpp ------------------------------------------------------------ revno: 1322 committer: Chris Hecker branch nick: spyparty timestamp: Fri 2011-03-11 19:57:03 -0800 message: clear pathing info for dynamic objects (like briefcase) when deactivating level modified: spyparty/project/spyparty/code/level.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/object_system/subsystems/pathing/pathing.h ------------------------------------------------------------ revno: 1321 committer: Chris Hecker branch nick: spyparty timestamp: Thu 2011-03-10 21:33:51 -0800 message: - fix chooser stuff - check into lookat bug - fix server to not freak quite as much added: spyparty/project/spyparty/content/levels/ballroom-newb.png modified: spyparty/notes/marketing.txt spyparty/notes/sound.txt spyparty/project/spyparty/code/chooser.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/object_system/subsystems/animation/animation.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/object_system/subsystems/animation/animation_cal3dutils.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/situations/serving/serving.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/spyparty.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/content/levels/ballroom-newb.prop spyparty/worklog.txt ------------------------------------------------------------ revno: 1320 committer: Chris Hecker branch nick: spyparty timestamp: Wed 2011-03-09 17:10:40 -0800 message: display help text in chooser modified: spyparty/project/spyparty/code/chooser.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/spyparty.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/spyparty.h spyparty/project/spyparty/code/spyparty_lobby.cpp spyparty/worklog.txt ------------------------------------------------------------ revno: 1319 committer: Chris Hecker branch nick: spyparty timestamp: Wed 2011-03-09 16:51:23 -0800 message: - asserts in output format for msvc - unify HandleAttach and HandleDetach, hopefully floating be gone - s/casted/cast/g; - don't crash in various places if not enough chars - last sip event - if ai spy picks up briefcase, set correct state modified: spyparty/lib/checkerlib/misc/checkerassert.cpp spyparty/notes/design.txt spyparty/project/spyparty/code/character.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/character.h spyparty/project/spyparty/code/chooser.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/object_system/subsystems/animation/animation.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/object_system/subsystems/animation/animation.h spyparty/project/spyparty/code/round_events.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/situations/bookcase/bookcase.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/situations/briefcase/briefcase.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/situations/bug_ambassador/bug_ambassador.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/situations/double_agent/double_agent.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/situations/drinks/drinks.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/situations/pedestal/pedestal.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/situations/seduction/seduction.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/spy_server.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/code/spyparty.cpp spyparty/worklog.txt ------------------------------------------------------------ revno: 1318 committer: Chris Hecker branch nick: spyparty timestamp: Wed 2011-03-09 14:53:58 -0800 message: directly attach objects to hardpoints to avoid floating stuff modified: spyparty/notes/design.txt spyparty/project/spyparty/code/character.cpp spyparty/project/spyparty/source_content/maya/objects/pedestal.mb spyparty/worklog.txt ------------------------------------------------------------ revno: 1317 committer: Chris Hecker branch nick: spyparty timestamp: Mon 2011-03-07 16:41:47 -0800 message: replace Disconnect with Quit on game menu if autoplaying modified: spyparty/project/spyparty/code/spyparty.cpp spyparty/worklog.txt
I’m sitting here in the Fire Hose Games offices, trying to stay out of the way1 as they do interviews about Slam Bolt Scrappers, which is shipping on PSN on March 15th, getting ready for PAX East, and I realized I still hadn’t posted the new manual!
So, here’s the pdf, ready for half-fold double-sided printing: The Updated SpyParty Manual
Here are some rasterized images:
So, study up, and hope to see you at PAX East!
