I've always been disappointed at how poorly M.C. Kids did in the market. When we started the project everybody was very excited. We were going to do a super fun game and it was for McDonalds. They were going to have Happy Meals for the game which they sell 1 million a day and run for 30 days so 30 million ads for our game would be placed. How could it lose? They game was accused of being a copy of Mario but we didn't think so. In Mario the object was to get to the end of the level. In our game, getting to the end of the level didn't help you. You needed to find a magic card. If you didn't find the magic card in the level you hadn't accomplished anything. (An idea that is now used in Mario 64 so you could say they took the idea from us!) Each world had a character that would require a certain number of magic cards to be found for his world before he would let you on to the next. All in all it was a good game. Better than most NES games at the time. For some reason though McDonalds didn't agree and decided not to support it with a Happy Meal promotion. What was even more personally frustrating was that Virgin came out with a string of games, Global Gladiators, Cool Spot, and Aladdin. None of which were as good a game as M.C. Kids but they had artwork and sound that helped get them a ton of attention. In M.C. Kids you could not only run and jump but you could pick things up, throw them, catch them. You could ride a boat. You could ride moving platforms. You could take a block and turn it into a moving platform. You could change the level by removing blocks. You could warp around levels using zipper warps. You could play the level upside down where the ceiling became the ground. There were spring boards to jump and and super spring boards that required extra weight to activate. Burning bridges, breaking ice platforms, breaking bridges, lava boats, sand blocks that revealed things behind them, treadmill platforms that you control. We had secrets on every level. Extra goals (finding all the cards instead of just the required number got you extra things). We had characters you could talk to that would give you hints on where you might find a card. We even had an extra secret world with 3 really cool puzzle levels. Global Gladiators had almost nothing. Run, jump, shoot and invisible platforms. That's it. 15 levels. We had 33. Cool Spot added a few more things and Aladdin added a few more than that but it still didn't match M.C. Kids in features or fun. What made this so frustrating was that all it would have taken was to take the artists from those games and put them on the M.C. Kids engine and Virgin could have had some of the best games in the industry. M.C. Kids had basically a 3 person team. Two programmers and 1 artist. Global Gladiators was given 5 or more artists. It just goes to show that making a good game is not sufficient to having a hit game. Oh well, I guess as some would say, that's just Sour Grapes. Here are the many of the various maps from M.C. Kids. Thumbnails and Images or a Zip file with all the images (2.5meg). Here's a list of which levels have which cards.  For example: Lake_2 has Grimace card #0 and Ronald card #1 (cards are numbered 0 to 5 cause I'm a programmer and programmers count from 0)  To find those cards, look up the map 'Lake_2.gif' on the page of maps above and find the two cards.  One is at the right top of the big waterfall.  To get it you have to carry a boat to the top of the waterfall and then take the boat across.  The other is on the right just under the finish line.  To get it, at the start of the level you have to jump to the left.  Then take the zipper and it will start you under the finish line so you can get the card. Level Name Card Card # Card 2 Card 2 # Clif_1 Clif_2 Clif_3 Clif_4 Clou_1 Clou_2 Dock_1 Fore_1 Fore_2 Fore_3 Fore_4 Isla_1 Isla_2 Lake_1 Lake_2 Mead_1 Mead_2 Mead_3 Moon_1 Moon_2 Moon_3 Moon_4 Moun_1 Moun_2 Moun_3 Moun_4 Ship_1 Volc_1 Volc_2 Volc_3 Grimace Grimace Grimace Grimace Puzzle Birdy Hamburgler Ronald Puzzle Ronald Professor Professor Puzzle Grimace Grimace Ronald Ronald Ronald Cosmic Cosmic Cosmic Cosmic Birdy Hamburgler Birdy Birdy Professor Puzzle Puzzle Hamburgler 2 4 5 3 5 3 4 3 0 5 0 4 2 1 0 2 0 4 1 0 3 5 5 3 1 4 5 3 4 0 Hamburgler Professor Birdy Cosmic Professor Hamburgler Ronald Cosmic Hamburgler Birdy Professor Puzzle 5 2 2 2 1 1 1 4 2 0 3 1 For more information about many NES games try these links: Node 99 System Software: Emulators for many systems tsr's NES archive: Tons of info on NES games.

Burning Bridge Clouds Falling Platforms Breaking Bridge Finish Line Lava Block Map Moving Platform Snow Bridge Spring Boards Super Spring Boards Treadmill

tUME is a map editor Greg Marquez, John Alvarado and Myself designed to help us create data for the various games of Future Classics. As such we didn't want to hard code it to edit only one kind of map as most map editors in the game industry do.

What is a map editor? Well many video games require maps. A simple example would be Pac Man. The playfield that Pacman runs around is a map. Where as Pacman has only one map, Ms.Pacman has several. Other examples of maps. In Command and Conquer each level is a map. In Sonic each level is also a map. Games like Bard's Tale or Stonekeep need a map that although the player doesn't see it it tells the program where to draw the walls and doors.

So, when we started tUME our goal was to make an editor that could handle any map for any type of game that we could think of. This lead us to several design decisions. One was that tUME would allow you to edit more than one map at a time. We decided to call these rooms and a collection of rooms was a map. This would allow is to make games that used more than one room per map (like Adventure on the Atari 2600). Each room could be any size. No fixed limits. Rooms are made from tiles and tiles are usually a fixed size for a given game. The most common sizes are 8x8 pixels or 16x16 pixels. We decided that tUME would handle any size tile. Of our first 5 games, 3 used 16x14 tiles and one used 3x3 tiles. We decided that we would not even bother to allow you to edit the pixels of a tile in tUME. The reason was that at the time there was a great program for editing graphics called DeluxePaint(DPaint). We knew that it would be a waste of time to try to duplicate all the editing functions of DPaint and therefore it would be better if the artists just edited their artwork in DPaint with all it's fancy functions and then use that artwork in tUME to make a room. The graphics are loaded from DPaint files each time you load the map into tUME so if you needed to change the graphics you could just pop back to DPaint, edit the graphics and then reload your map in tUME and the new graphics would be there.

Another decision we made was to allow unlimited layers in a Room. A layer in a room is similar to putting a piece of cellophane over a piece of paper. You can use them for whatever you want from annotating things in a room to adding more graphics.

We also decided to allow you to give a type to all the things in a map. You could give tilesets, rooms and layers a type. A type for us was just a number. This number was interpreted by a type of program we called tUMEPack.

Our biggest decision was to have all the 'smarts' for our map editor be in a separate program. Every game would require one of these separate programs and its job was to take the rooms, layers and tilesets from a tUME map and convert them to data needed for the particular game.

This program would interpret the types of the various things in tUME and decide what to do. For example if a tileset was marked as type '3' that might mean look that the pixels in the tiles and create a height map (or contour) from them. A contour is used in a side scrolling platform game like Sonic or Aladdin to tell the program where the main character touches the ground. Another tileset type might be interpreted on a certain type layer to tell the program were all the monsters start in a level.

If we started a new game and the data from the last version of tUMEPack didn't fit we'd just write a new tUMEPack program. Nothing needed to change in the main editor tUME.

After we used tUME to make the 5 games in Future Classics we found that other people needed a map editor too and so we started selling it commercially.

It originally ran on the Amiga but the Amiga was quickly dying in the market place and so our friend Dan Chang decided to port tUME to the PC.

Level 6 from Grimace's Forest in M.C. Kids

Quite a few people have purchased tUME and it is been used in quite a few products. Here's a short list.

• Future Classics
• MyPaint for Sega CD
• M.C. Kids
• Terminator Sega CD
• Terminator vs. Robocop for Genesis
• Terminator vs. Robocop for NES
• Global Gladiators
• Cool Spot
• Aladdin for Genesis
• Jungle Book
• Pitfall the Mayan Adventure
• Earthworm Jim
• Earthworm Jim2
• Caesar's Palace for Genesis/SNES

If you have a need for tUME you can download it from here.

Note:  tUME is an old DOS product.  Unless you are doing a Gameboy game, Gameboy Advanced or Wonderswan game it is unlikely to meet your needs.  Gameboy development is still happening.  I don't think anybody is making SNES, NES, Genesis or GameGear games anymore.  It will still work for the PC but it only supports 8 bit graphics (ie, 256 colors).

Big Grub has a newer 32 bit map editor called Meat for Map Editing Art Tool.  It runs under Windows95/NT and supports 24 and 32 bit graphics and will edit more than just tiles.  Only one version of MeatPack (the equivilent of tUMEpack) currently exists.   I'm not sure if they are interested in selling it but you can ask John Alvarado at alvarado@biggrub.com.

Disruptor is currently available for the Sony Playstation but once upon a time it was slated to be available for the M2. A system that is at least 3 times more powerful than the Nintendo 64. How do I know? Because I worked on that project.

I've been surprised by that lack of attention that Disruptor for the Sony Playstation has gotten. It is arguably the best single player 'doom' game available for any platform at least at the time of it's release. Almost every level has it's own art set. Compare this to Doom, Duke or Quake where it seems like almost every level looks like every other. Disruptor for the Sony Playstation uses 50,000 to 100,000 polys per level. That's 5 to 10 times more then any Quake level. Unlike Quake the level design is vastly very varied from outdoor levels to cave levels to alien ruins to your standard building corridors. Some of the levels are even organic looking like the indoor area to the Mars level. Try to do something like that in Quake? It can't handle it.

It's also disappointing that the M2 version didn't see the light of day as more and more Quake clones hit the market, none of them have come close to the technology of Disruptor. Disruptor for the M2 used millions of polys per level. In both versions the levels spool off the CD so they can be any size with nearly any level of detail.

It seems as though nobody is aware of what could be.

GEX was one of those projects from Hell. When I was interviewing at Crystal I was told that Gex was to be the next Sonic. It was to be a huge hit, the newest mascot, one of those titles that inspires all kinds of merchandising like toys and cartoons, pens, pencils, notebooks, underroos, ... Just go into your local Toys R Us and look at all the stuff with Sonic or Mario on it and you can see why I was very excited at the opportunity to work on such a product. When I started on the project there were 4 people on the team. Mira Ross (Lead artist), Suzanne Dougherty (Artist), Lyle Hall (Producer) and myself (Lead Programmer). A few months later Justin Knorr was hired as Lead Designer. The design to that point was heavily influenced by marketing. The game was about Gecko X, a Hollywood stuntman (stunt Gecko). The studio he worked for was in financial trouble and helping it fail were the enemies Karl Chameleon and his henchmen like Guido Gila. Each level would be themed around a Hollywood action movie genre. For example the Western. The level intro would show stock footage of old Hollywood western movies (for some reason marketing thought this was the greatest idea ever) and then the level would have Gex going through it doing "stunts". The better he did the more money the 'Movie' made and therefore the better the studio did. One level was designed using that theme and it was just awful. One of the problems of choosing a real world theme like Western Cowboy Movie is that you can't make any game play structure you want and still have it make any sense. For example you can't have floating platforms in the sky in the a western style town because, well things don't float in the sky in the old west. If on the otherhand you choose a make-believe or fantasy theme you can justify any structure you want because well it's fantasy. For a platform character game, I believe this is a very important decision. Most of the best games in the category use a fantasy setting. Mario, Sonic even Earthworm Jim are in completely fantasy settings and therefore anything that appears in them needs no explanation. Sooo, after seeing the Western Town level design I strongly suggested we change the design. One to get rid of the incredibly lame concepts of Stuntman/Hollywood Studio.... and the other to change to a fantasy setting where any idea we came up with would not need justification. The change was that Gex would get sucked into 'TV Land' run by some villain. A place where the villain could make anything happen. This villain had sucked in many other characters and Gex would rescue all of them while trying to escape himself. Gex would need to find TV remotes that would allow him to 'change the channel' (go to new levels) and in each world when Gex defeated a boss the boss would turn out to be someone that had been pulled into TV land against his will and then turned into this big boss by the main villain. This would give that character a chance to advance the story. This new idea was quickly accepted by the team. The main character was named Rezull by Dan Arey and he had his video warriors (other characters that were made of TV static) We designed 6 worlds each with 3 sets of art. One example would be 'horror world' where we had a graveyard art set, a haunted house art set and a something we called a mode 2 art set. Mode 2 was supposed to be very similar to the Sega arcade games 'Rail Chase' and 'Jurassic Park' where the level proceeds into the screen instead of horizontally scrolling. Mira had already been working on the graveyard art set and it became clear that 32bit art was a much harder process than 16bit art. Here's an example why. On a Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis, most side scrolling games use 1000 8x8 pixel cels or less. 1000 8x8 pixel cels all will fit on one 320x200 pixel screen. In other words, go into any paint program, make a 320x200 pixel document. Fill it with graphics. You're done! You've just drawn all the graphics you can have in one level of a 16 bit game. Now go to a 32 bit system. We now have memory for 6 to 12 320x200 screens of graphics per level and we have a CD so we could have even more graphics per level if we loaded graphics from the CD or at least we could make each level use a different 6 screens of graphics.. In simple terms that means each level has at least 6 times the work of an 16bit level. The graphics for the first level of Gex had taken 2 months so far so we calculated it out. 6 worlds * 3 art sets * 2 months per art set = 36 months of art. It was Sept 93 and the company wanted the game done by June 94. That's 9 months so 36 / 9 months = 4 artists. Plus we needed art for the main character and all the enemies and all the glue screens (title screen, options screen, ..) plus all the maps (6 world maps) plus the video (title, ending and other videos between levels to advance the story.) It was clear we needed a much larger team. Unfortunately the company didn't want to hear it. They wanted a 32bit game that would be the next Sonic but they were not willing to put the resources into it that would be required to do it. They had come from a 16 bit world and still thought they only needed a 16bit size team. Another problem was that the first two games, Crash N' Burn and Total Eclipse, didn't require large art teams. The reason is in the nature of their design. Take Total Eclipse, there are 5 outdoor art sets and 5 indoor (tunnel) art sets. An outdoor art set consists of 3 basic title types. Example: A snowy mountain range takes 1 tile that looks like snow, 1 tile that looks like dirt and one tile that looks like water (for lakes). A tile is 32x32 pixels. Then you have to make 9 tiles that form the transition between snow and dirt and the 9 tiles that make the transition from dirt to water and you're done. That's all you need for one level. Something that could be done in a couple of days. Of course you still have enemies, ships, glue screens, video and stuff like that but it's clear that art for one level of Total Eclipse is vastly less art than one level of Gex. Crash N' Burn has a similarly small art requirement per level. Therefore the company's experience told them that two artists was enough for one game. The company did start hiring a few more artists. They hired an paper animator and an inexperienced artist to work as a team to make the enemies. That went on for several months but it didn't work out. Steve Kongsle (from Crash N' Burn) was asked to do the main character and accepted. They contracted some artist from Hungary that also failed to produce any useable art. They contracted with Kirk Henderson who did work out (he did much of Planet X, all the Jungle, and all the world maps) By June we had decided to get rid of Mode 2 and make each world have only one art set so for example the Horror world dropped the Haunted House art set and became just the graveyard. Done by that time were the graveyard art set, cartoon and sci-fi and almost no enemies. It was around that time that Silicon Knights (creators of Legacy of Kain) were asked to do some enemies for Gex. They cranked out about 26 enemies in about 1 month. Also Steve Suhy was hired and was asked to do many of the enemies. Since it was now June and the project was not even 50% finished, the company decided to cut the sci-fi levels since none had been done and since they didn't like the art. That brought the game down to five worlds and they hoped would get the game done by Sept in time for Christmas. 3 Scriptors were added to the team to script (program) the enemies for the game. 3 more designers were added to help layout levels and one more programmer was added because until that time I was the only programmer on the team. One other programmer had been working on the level layout tool for the game but she was officially part of the tools department and not the Gex team. That changed when she got the tool working and she also became part of the programming team. In September we didn't have any sounds yet. We had some music and we had no voiceovers. The des igners didn't have any idea what a theme for a level was. Most of the levels they had built were huge and used as many different things they could cram into them. This is not good design and it also meant that the levels took too much memory or didn't leave enough space for sounds so when sounds were finally added all the levels had to be redone to use a theme. Pick 2 or 3 enemies and theme the level around them. By Winter of 95 it was clear there were still a few more months. The Lead Designer had basically tuned out and was only working 10 to 6 while the rest of the team worked 12 to 16 hour days. To save our sanity a few of us on the team decided to take the Sci-fi art that had been cut from the game and make secret levels. Danny Chan (programming) and Evan Wells (designer) did most of the work. We recruited several people not on the team to help make some of these new levels. Evan had programmed a shooter for his Senior project at Stanford (he was finishing his degree at Stanford and working on this nightmare project and competing in National gymnastics) and we decided to stick that shooter in the game as a bonus. Susan Michelle (scriptor) decided she wanted to make a simple game too so we put that in too. I recruited our music guy to make some music and asked on the net for some submissions. We also got some artwork off the net for backdrops and 3D models for the shooter. All of this was done in secret without the knowledge of the company, 3 of the 4 designers and the producer of the game. The problem was we needed these levels to be play tested and so we had to let playtesting in on what we had done. Eventually the rest of the company knew. As for the ending. Originally the credits were supposed to have pictures of the team. Lyle Hall was put in charge of getting everything for the credits organized and after a month without getting them done Madeline (head of product development) ordered us to just put in text based credits. The 'secret' team had a great idea. We decided to make a special ending that if a player played all our secret sci-fi levels and then finished the game they'd get our special ending. Dan Arey wrote the ending text which you can see during the special ending. It's about 7 minutes long. Then I scanned in a ton of paper art, sketches and storyboards from Mira and put them all in the game. About 7 minutes worth. I then got everybody to supply the pictures we had requested for the original credits and Mei yu put it all together into an ending that lasts almost 18 minutes! This was also going to remain a secret but then something happened. Justin Knorr, the Lead Designer, who had been only working 10 to 6 came in one day and found that one of his levels had been edited without his permission. Since he didn't usually show up on weekends and since we where trying to ship the game, someone was ordered to edit the level to fix a few problems and make it a little easier. Justin was very frustrated because many things that he had wanted in the game were getting cancelled so as to let the game ship sooner. This editing of his level was the final straw and so we went into his office and did a big no-no. A few days later his edits were discovered by playtest. We had programmed the ability to put any message in the game just by placing a 'question mark' object and typing the text you want to appear. Also, we had a level select screen that selected from over 80 levels (even though there are only 28 real levels in the game). There was a cheat code that would get you to that level select screen. Justin put in one of his levels in the Kung Fu world a secret message that he hoped the company would not find. It told of the secret level select screen cheat code and asked the player to choose a certain level. That level was the original version of the same Kung Fu level with several parts that he was told to remove because they were buggy and it was decided to remove them and ship the game rather than try to fix them and delay the game even farther. (The game was 8-9 months late at this point). At the end of this level were 3 more messages. They said in so many words, something like. "Didn't you think this level had some cool shit in it? This level was cut because the company didn't put you, the customer, first but just wanted to make money. Call Madeline Canepa at 415-555-1212 and give her a piece of your mind and my mind too." It did have her real phone number. Well, playtest found the message and when it came out Justin was immediately fired because the company pointed out that Mitsushita (Panasonic) would not take kindly to finding such a message in a game they were going to bundle with the 3DO in Japan and America and that Justin's action had not only personally upset people but had possibly threatened the company's relationship with Panasonic. Well at that point the company wanted to know what else was in the game that they didn't know about so we decided that we had to show them the 18 minute ending incase they felt that something in it would upset Panasonic. Fortunately the really liked the long ending and so it remained in the game. The game was finally released in mid March 95. Most of the people on the team were not happy with it. We had worked for 21 months of Hell with too few resources, too many things cut and all the other unforeseen problems that had plagued the product. But, the public and the press really liked the game and so I guess that made us feel alot better at all our hard work.

The Stupidest company in the Industry.

---

This page is not yet released but is coming soon to a site near you.

Actually I think I will probably never write this page.  It's been a while since I actively hated Virgin though I know there are plenty of people left to carry the torch.

If you'd like to read lots about them check out all the info at http://above-the-garage.com.com in the random blts section.

There is one comment I would like to make though.  Probably the single biggest problem at Virgin which I think was a big factor in lots of the other problems was that the boss was not a gamer in any way shape or form.  In fact he liked to brag that he had never played a video game in his life.  That means that most decisions by him and other upper management were not based on making good games but based on making money.  There's nothing wrong with making money but I'd argue that if your games suck then eventually you are not going to be able to make money.

To go to the opposite extreme.  At Microprose, at least when I was there, the boss was a gamer.  When it became close to the end of the project he would personally take home the game and play it and if he found something he thought was frustrating or no fun he would make the development staff change it.  At the time we didn't like him butting in but looking back it was far far better than the opposite at Virgin.  At Microprose you were generally guaranteed to put something out you could be proud of.

The creator of 'Castle Wolfenstein' for the Apple II along with several original titles including 'The Voice', one of the first digital sound titles which ran on the Apple II.

2004/02/26

Silas Warner recently died

I got e−mail forwarded from Tommy Tallarico

A great legend Silas Warner has passed on.

We are renaming the G.A.N.G. "BEST AUDIO PROGRAMMING" Award to the "SILAS WARNER BEST AUDIO PROGRAMMING" Award.

For those of us who knew and worked with Silas he was one of the most unique, brilliant and memorable characters you could ever meet. There are so many amazing Silas rumors and stories that I have heard and shared with people over the years. Some of which I saw with my own two eyes.

Programming in his underwear... TRUE!

Ramming his car into the Virgin building... TRUE!

...and many others that can only be appreciated and told in person.

He was misunderstood by some but he had an amazing heart to match his amazing mind and I was lucky enough to spend many days at a time with him implementing audio and talking about the "good old days" of video gaming.

For those of us who knew him he will be sadly missed.

Lets all raise our glasses at GDC this week and toast a true legend!!

If anyone has contact info for his wife Kari Ann Owen please pass it along to me. thanks,

Tommy Tallarico

Silas was quite a character. 6ft 7inches and somewhere between 300 and 400lbs.  I was lucky enough to work with him at M.U.S.E. where he did his most famous works, Robot War, Castle Wolfenstein, The Voice (as far as I know the first home digital sound program), and several other lesser known low−res games for the Apple ][ that I've since lost track of. A bug eating game, a fire fighting game.

I was introduced to him by our producer, Marty, and he pointed to a cake tupperware container on Silas's file cabinet that had something gross inside. Marty said they didn't know what it was and no one was brave enough to find out. It remained their during my entire employment at M.U.S.E.

Silas and I worked together on Leaps & Bounds for the Atari 800 and Commodore 64.  I was in charge of the Atari 800 version and Silas the C64 version but they shared code.  There were a few animations that only the C64 could do because it had 8 3 color hardware sprites available where as the Atari only had 4 1 color sprites and so I redid those ones specifically for the Atari.  As my art was better I ended up redoing several of the common ones as well.  That was back in the day when us programmers did it all.  All the program AND all the art AND all the sounds. Leaps and Bounds was written 100% in assembly and used an interesting system Silas had designed where code for drawing was inserted directly inline in the assembly like this

    ...
     lda    #100
    sta    myvar
    jsr    drawgraphics
    db    g_color,1
    db    g_line,10,10,20,10
    db    g_color,2
    db    g_box,10,20,20,30
    db    g_circle,15,15,5
    db    g_end
    lda    myvar
    ...

No setup required, the function drawgraphics would check on the stack to find out where it had been called from, lookup the data following it, walk the data and update the return address on the stack so when the function returned it would continue after the end of the data. This was useful for more than just graphics because it basically allowed you to make more C like function calls to functions that took multiple arguments.  Now a days if you were using assembly on a nice processor you'd probably just load all your parameters into registers but back then, a 6502 only had 3 8bit registers.

I wish I could find a copy of both version of Leaps & Bounds as I have neither anymore.

M.U.S.E. laid off half the company as soon as Leaps & Bounds was finished.  A few months later they were closed.

We worked together again at Microprose although we were generally not on the same teams.  I'm guessing it was hard for Silas to go from kind of a co−founder of M.U.S.E. to just another employee at Microprose although I never asked him about that.

As for stories I remember a few. Some are second hand, some I experienced

• Back in those days we had dot matrix printers that used fan fold paper. Silas would print a listing, tear off the feeder edges and start eating them.
   
• One day some people met for drinks after work. Silas showed up maybe an hour after the majority of the group, sat down and then hollered louder than you can imagine for a WAI----TRES------------!!!! embarrassing everyone at the table. Of course now I live in Japan where shouting for the waitress is the norm.
   
• Silas used to be a radio DJ and had a perfect DJ voice and personality when called on.
   
• Silas, some other co-workers and I went out for lunch.  We got American style Chinese food at the mall food court. Silas bit the end off of his egg roll, emptied 3 packets of soy sauce into it, took a big bite and it exploded all over us.
   
• Silas was over at my friend, Ed Bever's for New Years. At 12am he went out on the porch and made the loudest longest holler ever heard. According to Ed it was the kind that would make the walls of a castle crumble.

---

Silas's wife, Kari Ann Owen wrote me, forwarded Silas's obituary and said I could post it here so here it is.

Dr. Kari Ann Owen, Ph.D.

−=−

My Husband’s Obituary:

My beloved husband, Silas Sayers Warner, passed away on Thursday, February 26, 2004. Silas was 54 years old and suffered from kidney disease, diabetes, arthritis and hypertension. He was six foot nine and two hundred ninety four pounds.

Silas led the bravest and fullest life possible.

He was born in Chicago and at age seven barely escaped a violent death at the hands of his father, Forrest Warner, who threw his young son against a wall. A short time later, when Silas’ beloved mother Ann was driving with her son on a Chicago freeway, she pulled over to find the brake linings had been cut.

Forrest Warner never served a day in jail for attempted murder or any other charge, possibly because he was a very successful industrialist. He did not willingly share one fraction of his wealth with his wife or son during the remainder of their lifetimes.

When Ann Warner divorced her husband, Silas and his mom moved to Ann’s true home of Bloomington, Indiana, where Ann’s sister, a Indiana University administrator, found them housing. Ann began teaching studies, obtained her degree and certificate and became a master teacher, particularly of rural schoolchildren in the counties surrounding Bloomington. The movie “Kristy”, starring Kellie Martin, suggests this part of Ann’s life.

Silas grew up responsible, with a mother who fostered his independence, and although he had to spend many hours alone after school waiting for his mom to come home, he never attracted or pursued criminal behavior, but devoted himself to scientific learning and also historical reading. He began working at age twelve and did not quit until the computer industry in California collapsed and fired him in 2002, when Silas was fifty three.

Silas had said he could have been a mama’s boy, hiding from his pain and the bullies who sometimes taunted him about his weight, but his mother had the courage to allow Silas to attend a Nevada agricultural college, Deep Springs, for a year when Silas was fifteen. Silas loved that college. And Silas himself took care of the bullies: one unfortunate sherriff’s son in Indiana found himself unconscious on the school floor after Silas had had enough.

Silas, by that time, had attained much of his full height and weight, and was six foot nine and a school football tackle. Yet, he never had much confidence in his appearance or appeal to women. Until we met in the spring of 1995, he never believed he would marry, and for many years had been devoting his energies to his incredible career in the software industry, his public transit advocacy and the founding of an inclusive Lutheran fellowship in Maryland, where he lived and worked for many years.

The death of a Maryland software company brought him first to southern California and then to the San FranciscoBay Area, where we met. His integrity and our deep commonality were so revelatory that we knew at first meeting we belonged together. It did not take long for Silas to propose, and our ten month engagement was devoted to laying the psychological and spiritual foundations of our marriage. We had some private counseling sessions and attended a community marriage preparation course, which opened extraordinary (and sometimes extraordinary difficult) avenues of communication about the most painful challenges we were facing as a couple and as individuals.

When two very young adults enter into a marriage in the fullest bloom of both health and employment potential and opportunities, that creates an atmosphere of optimism. Our love created miracles of happiness amidst our very adult problems of Silas’ physical health and especially the symptom of incontinence, the result of a minor stroke some years before. as well as developing kidney failure. My own health problems at the time of our engagement and marriage included morbid obesity, which was changed in 2000 through gastric bypass surgery; and post traumatic stress because of child and adult sexual and emotional abuse and the violent deaths of many friends.

We struggled mightily with all our problems: those we defeated, those we mitigated and those we just had to accept. Silas swam and walked with me, aiding his diabetes management, and I continued my physical activities in dance and horseback riding and my writing career. Silas became great friends with my friends, who universally adored and accepted him, as his beloved mother accepted me, as Silas accepted me as I did him... at whatever weight, with whatever challenges and with our very different computers. (I have a Macintosh; he was a PC person, and termed our family “interfaith” because of that).

He had an amazing sense of humor.

New worlds opened to us both through our marriage. Silas came to see me perform as a dancer on our third date. Our first date was on a Friday at a San Francisco restaurant; the second on Saturday at an East Bay (near Berkeley) off leash park for dogs, when Silas bought my service dog $28 worth of flea control products, demonstrating he was already in love with me; and our third date was Sunday, when Silas came to see me perform in a modern dance piece,”Brain in a Box”, in an outdoor park.

He fully identified, I guess, with the piece, because it was about the spirit of a computer trapped inside its hardware. I wore a box on my head and danced on a hill. Silas did not take a picture at my request, but we both ended up wishing he had.

Sil as had always doubted his social abilities, and within five minutes of meeting a group of dancers, he was participating happily in the discussion and having a wonderful time. Everyone loved him, because he was kind and interested in their work.

The world Silas opened to me involved acceptance and love, both giving and receiving. Acceptance in the fullness of our love involved a deep intellectual understanding as well as a strong psychological grasp of each other’s worlds, and this is the most amazing love of all. I had loved and been loved by other men briefly, but there was not enough in common to make these relationships last. Silas and I shared much of the same mental world, although we worked in very different areas. His vast historical knowledge, coupled with deep empathy, enabled him to grasp the subjects of my plays and other writings, and I struggled to absorb what I could of his immense scientific and technical knowledge, particularly concerning computer programs and web site design and development. The design and some of the content of my web site is his creation, and we did all of it together.

And he participated in my plays, working the sound board, contributing his magnificent voice to performances. Silas read the role of Richard Nixon in my play “Moneda” about Salvador Allende, basing his interpretation on the memory of his father, whom I hope is in hell along with Richard Nixon, Allende’s probable murderer−at−a−distance along with Henry Kissinger, subject of the play. When I was asked to speak at a Cleveland, Ohio conference on AIDS and the arts about another play I had written and produced, Silas financed the trip for both of us outside the $100 honorarium the arts organization could provide. And when I won a national award for another play at the Moondance International Film and Stageplay Festival in Boulder, CO in January 2001, he took us there.

We swam. We took our service dog, Mischa. We had a wonderful time.

And when the bus driver at San Francisco International Airport tried throwing Mischa and me off the bus, Silas explained the Americans with Disabilities Act, later helping to obtain a small out of court settlement for violation of mine and the dog’s rights.

Silas hated confrontations. I could erupt volcanically, especially when our rights as handicapped people were violated, either about the service dog or anything else. No one ever fought harder for the rights of a disabled spouse than we did, whether the opponent was a sadistic security guard who used his ignorance of the Americans with Disabilities Act as a weapon of personal power or a medical insurance bureaucracy.

And when I was overweight, Silas would support me in defending myself from insults, although with a sense of humor: when I attended traffic school, the would−be “comic” teaching the class said some foolish things about fat, pudgy as he was. Silas’ dryly gentle response to my report of the confrontation, which was educational but not violent, was, “Did anyone get hurt”? The class applauded my response to the teacher’s unmeant cruelty and insensitivity, and I even passed the course and got my ticket removed. Of course, my other service dog, Boo Boo Bear, may have had something to do with it: Boo Boo weighs 150 pounds, and the traffic school instructor had a very little dog with him.

And Silas and I continued to accept challenges with some humor, and his love made the pain of others’ cruelty hurt a little less, since I had what so many prettier and wealthier people lack: a spiritual, physical and emotional home with love shared, at its deepest and most comprehensive.

It was our love that sustained us when we had no home.

After my husband was fired in March 2002 during the collapse of Silicon Valley, he never found employment again, except one two hundred dollar web consulting job and a two thousand dollar consulting payment concerning the cinematic adaptation of his video game “Castle Wolfenstein”. His health continued to deteriorate, although he fought harder than any soldier I have ever met or heard of. My brilliant husband, who helped develop the video games industry and who had worked since age twelve, who had put himself through Indiana University helping run the school’s computer systems, who had never been unemployed for more than twelve weeks, never really worked again. I had been considered permanently disabled since 1995, but Silas had worked full time up to March 2002 an astonishing four years (I think) after he went on kidney dialysis.

This marvelous giant, this creative genius, this lover and husband and immensely just and honest friend, supported his family (wife, service dogs, two cats and a therapy horse) on disability and unemployment. When we decided to leave the Bay Area for a less expensive part of California where I had a mentor in therapeutic horseback riding, Silas went to find housing while I remained to earn our moving expenses, doing animal care. The only housing Silas found was at a Baptist mission; we then rented housing in the home of a woman who we thought was sincere in her sobriety, though new to it, and she got drunk and abusive and we had to flee. Those three weeks of living in three motels, with a five day hospitalization for Silas after he fell in the first motel, actually a rented cabin, were the farthest emotional and physical distance from the home we owned for three years in the Bay Area and we survived, still sober and still married in our completest sense.

The last year and a half of our married life involved more disruption after we were relocated to the Chico, CA area, due to a landlord whose niece divorced and needed housing... four months after Silas and I thought we had moved to our dream rental in Paradise, CA, a beautiful town up a hill from Chico. I was performing at Stanford University when Silas phoned me on April 20, 2003. We moved to a small apartment near California State University in Chico where Silas finally lost his battle with kidney disease.

I have lost my husband, my love, the greatest love of mind and heart and body, and I will adore him and love him forever.

The following excerpt from a letter to my career counselor is part of my current response to my husband’s death:

“I am... determined to continue the vocational goals we have identified and which Silas supported with every fibre of his being.... finishing the certification to teach therapeutic riding, achieving the personal training certification and becoming self supporting in the field of adaptive physical fitness.... Please know how grateful I am for your extreme kindness and personal consideration at this terrible time. I loved Silas with all my heart and soul. If he could, he would thank you once again for your concern for us both. I will not let him down.”

---

Here's a presentation Silas Warner made in 1992.

The first real company I was a part of was called 'Seven' because there were Seven partners. Ultimately it didn't work out but it was very exciting at the time. We got an office in Irvine near the corner of Barranca and Jamboree which is across from the huge Marine's zeppelin hangers.

The Seven were:

• John Alvarado (Programmer)
• Barry Pringle Jr. (Artist)
• Barry Pringle Sr. (Producer)
• Ron Mar (Programmer)
• Brandon Alan Humphreys (Artist)
• Willis Wong (Artist)
• Gregg Tavares (Programmer)

Our first and only project was 'Disruptor' for the 3DO M2 system.

Here are far too many pictures of our offices.

This is Willis's side of the artist's room. As you can see he's got an interesting way of decorating.

Here's Willis's fish. Two Oscars and a Pocostamas

For a while I collected a few video game machines. Here are Kick (or Kickman) and Centipede.

Here's Willis standing next to Xevious (that belongs to Ron)

Here's five more games and Mr. Ball trying the get into the picture.

And another 4 games and Mr.Ball. Mr.Ball is a large rubber ball sturdy enough to jump and hurt yourself 😊

Here's are video game and movie collection. Most of them are mine.

Here's my office with most of my stuffed animals. We were on the 3rd floor.

The attack of my miniature figures.

Totoro and friends. If you never seen 'My Neighbor Totoro' go buy or rent it NOW! I promise you will not regret it. It's one of the best movies ever made.

Like most people in this industry I think I know what makes a good game. Of course also like most people I've never released a game that is actually considered good. Something always conspires to get in the way. As Mark Cerny once said, "Everything has to go right to have a hit, but only one thing has to go wrong.". I do strongly believe that if all the rules below are followed a good game will come out if it.

Actually that's not true.  I'm proud of a few games.  Gunship, M.C. Kids, parts of Gex and Crash Team Racing.

Of course a point I like to make is that there is a big difference between a good game and a hit. There are several hit titles that are not good games. A simple example would be any almost any Simpsons' game for the NES or SNES. Most of them did very well in the market because of the popularity of the Simpsons but most of them were very bad games.

Good game design is of course different to different people and different depending on the type of game you are creating. I'm not a big sports game fan and so I really don't have any great ideas on how to make a great sports game. Also, some sports people like simulations and others like arcade style play. Those two types of people or going to find different types of games to have the 'better' design.

My favorite games are platform games, action adventure games and platform shooters. My basic philosophy in game design is to look at my favorite games and compare them to bad games of the same type. The differences should point out why one game is good and another not.

	Good Platform games: Super Mario Bros 2 Super Mario Bros 3 Super Mario World Donkey Kong Country	Bad Platform Games: Lion King Chuck Rock
	Good Action Adventure Games: The Legend of Zelda Zelda: A Link to the Past Zelda: Link's Awakening	Bad Action Adventure Games: Soul Blazer Illusion of Gaia
	Good Platform Shooters: Mega Man 2 Super Metroid	Bad Platform Shooters: Mega Man 3-6 Cool Spot

Platform Games

For me, I define a platform game to be one were the player runs around and jumps on platforms but also for the most part does not shoot. This distinguishes between games like Mario and Mega Man or Sonic and Turrican. It also points out that games like Aladdin and Earthworm Jim are more like Mega Man or Turrican than Sonic or Mario. The cute graphics may make you think they are similar to Mario but if you were to replace the graphics of all these games with rectangles you'd quickly see which ones are more like a Platform Shooter than a Platform Game.

Here are some of my design ideas on Platform games. Many of them may also apply to other types of games.

• All levels should be separated into action, rest, action, rest areas. One easy way to do this is the have 'blocking' graphics. Graphics that allow you to separate one situation from another. Like the pipes in Mario. The pipes in Mario not only separate one area from another in terms of play but also separate groups of enemies so that the player can't get too many enemies on the screen at once which would push the game engine to it's limits. (i.e., slow down)
  
  Separating areas like this helps you look at an area and gauge how hard it is in a smaller context than the entire level. Can the player make it thought this one area to the next rest spot. Longer areas are generally harder to survive so you can often get a progression through a level by making the next area a little longer than the previous area.
  
  
• The game should have JUMP plus ONE an ONLY ONE action. More than one is too complicated... A Second action can be added but only if it is seldom used. e.g. Mario Spin Attack/Donkey Kong Switch Players.
  
  Example:We noticed this in Gex. There are three actions in Gex, JUMP, Tongue Lash and Tail Whip. It used to be that Tongue Lash was a mandatory action. You had to use it. We changed it near the end of the product to make it optional. You can play the game and never use Tongue lash because most players found it too complicated. In the heat of play they couldn't remember which button to press and neither could anybody on the team.
  
  
• 1/3 to 1/2 of the game should be secret. This makes the game last longer and gives it replayablilty. It also gives the players lots to discuss with their friends. All of this adds up to great word of mouth and keeping the game in the player's mind for weeks of play instead of days and therefore much much better enjoyment, memories, and sales. (This idea from Miyamoto)
  
  Super Mario World and Wario are good examples of this with Mario having the Star World and the Special World and Wario having the Ice World all being totally secret.
  
  
• Bosses should be simple. The action of a boss should be based around the basic dodge then shoot, dodge then shoot. The dodging can get increasingly difficult in later stages of the game but should be relatively simple with earlier bosses. Variations like Dodge/Dodge/Shoot and Dodge/Collect/Dodge/Shoot are okay but choose the variation before designing the boss.
  
  
• Design half your characters around what actions you need them to take. In otherworld, if your design NEEDS a character that goes up and down then come up with a character that looks like it would go up and down. If you need a character that is indestructible then make a character that looks indestructible (like the spiked rollers and the octopus in DKC).
  
  Design the other half by look and then give them a behavior appropriate for their look. Example: You are doing a horror level, you decide you must have a mummy. Design the mummy to do a mummy like thing like just walk left/right and growl (This idea from Miyamoto)
  
  That may sound stupid but consider the all to common alternative. Enemies that either all do the same thing or enemies that do something they don't look like they should be doing.
  
  
• Music must 'drive' the player in an platform game. Like Techo/Dance it must make the player feel like moving in the same way that parade music makes you feel like marching and dance music makes you feel like dancing. It's okay to make exceptions (like water levels in DKC) but the initial music must make you move.
  
  
• Enemies must graphically distinguish whether or not the player can kill theml. In otherwords don't just make a bunch of enemies and arbitrarily decide that some are killable and some aren't. An enemy that you can't kill should be obvious by how it looks like maybe it's covered in armor or looks like it's made out of stone. Something visual that lets the player know that it's probably indestructible.  Another good thing to do is have a good and obvious visual effect and/or sound when you try to kill an indestructible enemy. Example: The metal 'tink' in Zelda makes it obvious that you can't kill a particular creature with a particular weapon.
  
  
• Come up with playability guidelines for level building. Example: A Bonus puzzle level should take a good player no more then 6 tries to perfection. No regular level should take more than 4 lives to complete. Then test your levels with new players. Your goal should be to make a game that's fun not frustrating. If most people can't make it through your level without throwing the joypad your level is too frustrating and needs to be fixed.
  
  
• Design the game to present levels in a non-linear themed order. In otherwords Sonic and Gex are boring because in Sonic you have to play three levels that look almost the same before you get to see anything new. In Gex you have to play 5 levels before you get to see anything new.
  
  A Good example: DKC. Jungle 1, Jungle 2, Cav e 1, Jungle 3, Water 1, Forest 1 Boss 1. Forest 2, Forest 3, Tree 1, Jungle 4, Water 2, Boss 2.
  
  
• Set specific limits during design so that proliferation of objects and situations those objects must deal with is kept much smaller. Choose a specific numbers of enemies, items and other things that have to be drawn and programmed. That way you can have few well designed, well used, well programmed objects instead of lots of rarely used, poorly designed objects.
  
  Example: there are over 450 separately programmed objects and enemies in GEX vs. about 50 in DKC (which game is better? I think DKC is better.)
  
  
• Level design needs to come before art. Specific design. This is to avoid the problem of the designer incorrectly using the art to make structures the art was never meant to make. Example, all graveyard levels in Gex make no sense. Graveyard dirt flies up in the middle of nowhere and for no reason. If the artists know what the designers plan to do then the artists can draw art what will work for the situation. Note: This also means the designer MUST commit to design ideas. Art cannot be redone!
  
  This also assumes that your team is split into designers and artists.
  
  
• Make a list of levels and for each level list what elements are introduced in that level.
  
  What new graphics:
  What new enemies
  What new objects
  What new game play elements
  What new sounds
  
  Quick example from Super Mario World.
  
  Level 1 has:
  Turtles, Yoshi, Help Box, Mushroom
  
  Level 2 has:
  Big Shot, Ducking areas, cannon pipes, invisible mushrooms
  
  Level 3 has:
  Swinging platforms, vertical levels, Secret blocks, falling off bottom.
  
  Level 7 has:
  First time player sees cape. Flying bugs, Triangle Wedge, 1up game, Secret level, Key
  
  Level 8 has:
  Water, Fish.
  
  The point here is to make each level NEW and DIFFERENT. If you use all if your items in the first level what is left for the player to look forward too. Also it gives you a chance to make a list of things you need for the entire game and see if it's a reasonable size.
  
  
• Each level must have a strong THEME. Pick 2 or 3 things and build a level out of them. Good examples of this are in DKC in almost all the levels. Each level chooses two or three things and then makes a creative level out of them. Start with simple setups and then progress them with more and more complicated things. This serves several purposes. One is that it defines the the level so that you can get it done. Another is that it distinguishes the level from others. This is the hanging from the rope dodging vultures level. This level is the barrel level. This level is where you have to jump over bees. (vs the more common, This is the level with a bunch of stuff in it.  This next level also has a bunch of stuff in it just in a different layout.  Yuck!)  Another reason is that it limits the level to a few things. If you don't pick a theme with a few things then usually you'll just keep adding more and more stuff and never actually finish the level because you won't have defined what it means to be finished with it.
  
  
• Have a world map and make sure the player can take at least 2 routes through it at all times. This brings up a whole host of issues. In order to have an open map you must have enough levels. 8 or 12 levels is probably not enough. Most games that have only 8 to 12 levels get a certain amount of game play by making their levels hard. They also usually only allow a certain number of continues and then you have to start the game from the beginning. They do this and tell themselves that they're making the game last longer and therefore more fun but really they're just making the game frustrating. Sometimes extremely frustrating. Having a world map with multiple paths through it means that if the player is having trouble getting through a level they have other levels they can try. Having enough levels to support multiple paths through a world map means that you won't have to resort to making your levels frustrating because you'll have enough levels that the game won't seem too short. Also, you should design the game so that after completing the game you can go back and play the levels on the paths you didn't take giving your game more replay value and making the player happy that the game is not completely over when they beat the final boss.
  
  
• Some enemies should be indestructible. Don't make all enemies take damage from your basic attack and don't have some just have more hitpoints than others. Some good examples, in Mario you can't kill a piranha plant (unless you are powered up) You can't kill the spiked turtles unless you powered up. This forces the player to deal with the enemy in a different way than other enemies. Gex didn't follow this rule and therefore is boring as almost every enemy is dealt with exactly the same way and therefore might as well be the same enemy.
  
  
• Power ups must be useful and different. Any power up you have must be required somewhere in the game. Mario has very good examples. The ones in the last paragraph. (i.e. you need the powerups to kill some enemies. Also you can't get to several secrets without being able to fly. Gex would be an example of not following this rule. Every enemy can be killed with a tailwhip. You never need any of the powerups ever. Therefore there is no compelling reason to get them.
  
  
• Have more than one ending. Having more than one ending to the game gives the player a reason the play again. Especially if one ending is better than another and or vastly different. A bad example of this is Super Metroid. It has three different endings but they are so minorly different that there's no point in trying to see them. Gex, and Mario 64 are great examples of this in that they have very different endings and word of mouth and the press has really pushed the need to keep playing until you've seen the better harder to achieve endings.
  
  
• Have multiple goals. DKC, Yoshi's Island, M.C. Kids all have multiple goals. In DKC for example you can just get to the end of the game or you can try to find 100% of the secrets. Yoshi's island you can just get to the end of the game or you can try to finish each level with 100 flower points allowing you to access other levels. The problem here though is that you have to make the goals interesting and not frustrating or tedious. Getting 100 flower points in Yoshi's Island is not fun for anybody it's just tedious and lame. If almost no one will take the time to see your extra work what's the point. Games should be fun not frustrating. Super Mario world is one of the best examples here. You can go though the game and finish. Then you can try to see all of the game and although some of the secret levels are hard the basic premise of completing all the levels is not frustrating. Don't make it frustrating to get to see all of the game. Tricky maybe but not frustrating.
  
  
• Never force the player to take a hit. Some designers that will make setups that require the player take hits. Sometimes multiple hits. They usually justify this by saying that the player will just have to search the level for extra hitpoints so that when they get to that setup they can survive it. Instead of searching for the extra hitpoints I think most players will just stop playing your game.
  
  
• Consider a two or three hitpoint system. In Mario, Sonic and DKC you have 1 or 2 hitpoints. That means that the player basically switches from 'I'm safe' to 'I'm in danger' mode all the time. For example on Sonic if you have coins you are 'safe' because you can take a hit from anything and survive. Then when you take that hit and you have 0 coins you are in panic mode. You must run and find another coin quickly so that you can get back to safe mode. The same is true in Mario, you are big Super Mario and you are safe or you are just Mario (small) and you are in panic mode running to get another powerup to be Super Mario again.
  
  Bad example is Gex becau se you can have up to 8 hitpoints. That means that most of the time you don't care if you take a hit. It's not important until you are down to one hitpoint.
  
  It also encourages your designers to make setups that require hits because if you've got 8 hitpoints what's one hitpoint to you. If instead you decide early in your design that you will have a 2 hitpoint system then you can make your designers aware that they must be designing things that can be played without taking a hit and that they must balance the safe/panic modes throughout a level so that if the player is in panic mode (1 hitpoint) he doesn't have to go to far to get another powerup/coin and back to safe mode.
  

Action Adventure Games

Action adventure games are often grouped together with RPGs (Role Playing Games). I wish this didn't happen because the markets for the two types of games are as different as sports simulation vs. sports arcade game. An Action Adventure is a game where all the actions of the main character happen in an arcade action style. They require quick reflexes and speed. An RPG is a game that doesn't require any quick reflexes. Instead the player chooses from a menu which action each character should make and then watches as that character performs the action either successfully or un−successfully.

I should say that I find Zelda 3 (A Link to the Past:SNES) to be the ultimate example of a good Action Adventure and so most of my examples will be from Zelda

• Transportation: In an action adventure game the area you can explore typically gets larger and larger. If you are going to require the player to get around that larger area then at several points in the game add some new transportation that makes traveling less tedious. Zelda 3 is a good example of this. You start with just walking. Then you get the dash boots which allows you to move somewhat faster. Then they add the water whirlpools that will take you from one to another and finally they add the flute and bird. Each one is slightly more convenient than the last so that has you have to go from one end of the world to another it gets less and less tedious.
  
  
• Toyness (pickup, throw, environmental damage): Have lots of things for the player to do that 'don't really matter' and make them easy to do. In Zelda 3 examples are: You can cut bushes, pickup bushes, cut the grass, dig almost anywhere, there are lots of rocks to pickup and pots in most buildings to pickup. Almost none of these things are required but they are fun and make the world seem more alive.
  
  Note: This requires some for thought because if you can pick up one thing in the game then you need to make sure there are not lots of things that look like they can be picked up but can't.  For example lets say the player can pick up trashcans.  Lets say you didn't give this any thought and your artists went and drew rocks and bushes and other ornaments that are about the same size.  Now you make the game and you put trashcans and rocks and bushes all over the place.  Now you focus test the game and you find that every new player is frustrated because he can't tell which things he can pick up and which things he can't.  The solution is to not draw anything that same size as the trashcan unless you are going to allow the player to pick it up.
  
  
• Anticipation: Make sure to have lots of anticipation. There are two things I mean by this. One is for example if you have a river that the player can't cross but he can see the other side he'll wonder what is on the other side and wonder what he needs to do to get to the other side. He'll anticipate crossing. He'll want to know what's over there and keep playing until he can get there. The other kind is where you put some kind of barrier in front of things that the player can later remove. For example in Zelda 3 the first one is the cracks in the wall. You pass a few going through the castle dungeon but you ignore them because you can't do anything about them. Later in the game you get bombs and find out that you can blow a hole through the wall anywhere you see a crack and then you try to remember all the places you saw cracks before so you can go back and check them out. This also happens with light rocks, dark rocks, the mirror and pegs.
  
  
• Different Monster Behaviors. Try to have all monsters behave differently. Define differently by how the player has to deal with them. For example a monster that walks straight for the player and another that does that same thing but has two hitpoints instead of one might as well be the same monster. It's boring. Go through Zelda 3 and notice how different each monster is. Some have shields and can only be hit from one side. Some try to seal your shield. Some shoot right at you, some jump away from you.
  
  
• Most Monsters don't pay attention to the player: If you go through Zelda 3 you will notice that almost 2/3s of all the enemies don't pay any attention to the player. Instead they just follow some pattern of movement and basically get in the way. Those that do follow the player almost always move slower than the player or pause every few seconds to give the player a chance to get away.
  
  
• Always make sure the player knows what to do next. Try to give enough clues that the player always knows what to do next. That doesn't mean that you have to tell the player about everything there is to do but at least tell him about the required things. Imagine Zelda if it didn't mark the map for you. You'd just have to wander around and stumble upon the entrances which would be really tedious. In Zelda 3 also there are several people you can talk to that will give you clues as to where you'll find other things.
  
  
• Give the player more than one thing to do: Try to make sure there are always several things the player can do. For example the player can go to level 3 or find the flippers or find the ice wand. All of those options are available so that if one of them is too hard he can try something else that may help him with the other parts or maybe just playing for a while longer one one of the other goals will get him better at controlling the character for when him comes back to his original goal.
  
  
• Always make 'secrets' findable: Don't put in any secrets in that require the player to read about it in a magazine. For example something requiring the player to stand in some unmarked spot and press a, b, c and d is not cool (unless somewhere in the game some character gives you those instructions). Great examples of secrets in Zelda are the several places where there is a strange yet obvious mark on the ground. In Zelda 3 if you see a circle of plants or stones or a cross in the dirt you can usually bet that something secret will happen there. Many of them require to you stand in the center and then use the mirror to teleport to the light world were you will end up somewhere you can't get any other way. A great one that incorporates both this concept and anticipation is the medallion you get in the desert on the light world. From the light world you can see the structure that contains the medallion up on the cliff but you can't find the way up. Later you find that if you stand in the right MARKED place in the dark world and teleport to the light world you can get there.
  
  
• Design by events not by levels and monsters and bosses: Don't design the game by deciding that you are going to have 10 levels with ten bosses and then try to populate the levels with interesting stuff.. Instead design the game by the events that the player can/will do. For example the player will first try to get in the castle. Then the player will get the sword and shield from his uncle. Then he'll rescue the princess. Then he'll escape through the dungeon. Then he'll get told to visit some old lady in the town, then he'll be told to find an old man in the town. Then he'll be told to find another man on the other side of the world. That man will tell him to go to level 1 and then come back. That man will then mark 3 more places to go. Al so while in the town will be told to visit the fairly at the head of the river.
  
  The point is that each of those events has to be programmed/scripted/created.  If you do it from the level/boss paradigm you'll find that you've only done about 1/8th of the game because that game is not about levels to the player it's about the events that happen while trying to get from level to level..
  
  
• Have logical puzzles: Any game where flipping a switch on one side of the level opens a door on the other side is LAME! That would never happen in the real world and it won't make any sense to the player. All of your puzzles should make sense and should be able to be figured out by the player either on his own or with clues in the game. This was the problem with Zelda 4 on the Gameboy. It's a wonderful game but it has at least 2 puzzles that don't make any sense. One is that in one room you must kill three monsters in a certain order to solve the puzzle. There is a clue. It says something like 'goobla, crickle then fook' How is the player supposed to know that those three monsters in the room are 'goobla, crickle and fook'. A better clue would have been to show pictures of the monsters with arrows pointed from a to b to c.
  
  
• Trading is cheap and effective: There isn't alot of this in Zelda 3 but there is in Zelda 4. Basically have a character ask for something in exchange for something else. This is easy to implement and gives that player a goal and an anticipation.  e.g. I've got to get the dog food for the dog (goal) so I can get the bone key from him that opens the bone door (anticipation).
  
  
• Music must be scored: The music for an adventure game should be scored kind of like a movie. That means that each piece of music should make the player feel appropriate for the situation. If you are in a scary dungeon the music should make you feel trepidecious. If you are fighting a boss the music should make you panic. If you are visiting friendly characters the music should make you feel happy. Zelda 3 is great in this area. On the opposite end is Linkle Liver (or Wrinkled River) from Japan for the Saturn. The music is awful. You never feel threatened by a boss because the music doesn't get you in panic mode.
  
  

Platform Shooters

A Platform shooter is a game where a character on the screen runs around on platforms and shoots. Examples: Mega Man, Elevator Action, Turrican, Terminator, Bionic Commando. This as opposed to the more common style of shooter where you fly or drive a ship either up screen or across screen. Examples: Axley, Space Megaforce, Spy Hunter, R−Type, Scramble.

It's harder for me to come up with specific rules for a shooter. They all seem the same at a certain level and yet some work and some don't. Here are some ideas on what I notice about my favorites.

• Mega Man 2 vs all other Mega Man games has the player using all of the weapons or at least many of them very often. Most players once they get the Saw Blades or the Boomarang use them as their new standard weapon unless they run out of ammo. On all other Mega Man games the default weapon is basically the only usable weapon which is a frustrating weapon.
  
  
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I've started receiving a few e−mails asking various questions so I thought I'd start this section of my website.  If you have a question feel free to ask.  I might not have the time to answer every question.  Some of them I'll share here.