Why I hate "Cinematic"

"Cinematic" still seems to be a kind of buzz-word for videogames these days. Often scenes that are extra emotional or involving are called "cinematic". I do not really like this word and its usage expose many of the problems videogames have today. I guess some explanation is required. My two major reasons for disliking the word are:


1) Movies are not rolemodels
It means that videogames should strive to be more like cinema, that there are really important lessons to be learned by doing things like "in the movies". There is so much done in games the past 20 years, based on cinema, that has kept videogames from evolving. Linear and strict plots being one of the biggest. Because movies rely so much on being extremely specific in what the viewer shall see, it has standards that are direct opposite of what a videogame is. By having these "cinematic" goals, we have gotten things like cut scenes where all the "fun stuff" happens, quick-time-events and annoying camera angles. Games would have been far better off if these things did not become the design standards they are today.


2) Movies are not better
It implies that film is a superior medium. I would like to say that it is actually reverse. Film is probably the lesser of all story telling media. It leaves less to imagination and is the least fulfilling. Films do not require any real effort and leaves very little to the imagination. Sure, there are films that are hard to get and with very subtle imagery, but these are far between, and in my eyes does not live up the fantasies a great novel or piece of music can conjure up. In my mind games take all this a step further. While all other media gives us a prefabricated descriptions, videogames places us in living breathing worlds. I feel the difference is like reading about climbing Everest and actually doing it. Videogames as a medium is not inferior, I would say it is far superior than any else.


Does this means that the best games of today trump the best films, music and books? Far from it and quite the reverse. But videogames as a medium has an awesome potential. It would be very bad to let catchy buzz-words such as cinematic to stand in the way of fulfilling it.

We just turned into gold!

Today we can proudly announce that Amnesia: The Dark Descent has gone gold! So what does this mean? Well, it essentially mean that the game is done! What is left for us now to do is to send it away to our Russian publisher and online retailers. We will also start to focus 100% on doing PR and make sure people know about the game. In less then two weeks it will be released to the world!

It has really been a long journey and Amnesia has been the focal point of our existence for quite some time. With all that work behind us it now feels very nice to be done and we are extremely pleased with end result. I actually enjoyed testing the game until the very end, something I cannot say about Penumbra. I feel we have bettered ourselves on all accounts with Amnesia and are very excited to hear what all of you think about it once it's released.

Thanks to all who have supported us so far! And please continue helping us spreading the word.

Below follows a brand new gameplay trailer about water, doors and being hunted. And if you are interested in seeing new environments from the game check here and here.

Graphics compatibility test up. Please test!

I just uploaded a compatibility test that will check so your computer will support the graphics in Amnesia. Please test it as it will help us make the release version work on as many computers as possible.

You can get the test and more info here:
http://frictionalgames.com/forum/thread-3604.html

Please keep all feedback in the forum thread since that makes it easier for us to keep track of all data.

Thanks in advance to all who test!

What makes a profesional programming language?

One thing that I find a lot working at YoYo games is the disrespect GameMaker's built in scripting language (GML) gets. You see it all over the various forums, and in responses to glog entries, that if you really want to make games, you should learn a proper language. This does annoy me, and I'll explain why in a moment... First, I want to explain where I've come from in terms of games, programming and how I got to where I am today.

So, when I was around 13 a friend of mine got a ZX81 and we'd sit and play games, type in programs from magazines and on occasion try to make the computer do what we wanted it to do. Later, I bought the ZX81 from him and would make little games at home in BASIC, and then started to learn Z80 assembler. I then progressed to the ZX Spectrum and wrote a database for a solicitors office using Sinclair BASIC, and the progressed to the Commodore Plus4 where I wrote a few games in a mix of assembler and BASIC. Eventually I progressed to full assembly programs and moved onto the Commodore 64 and my first job at DMA Design. While writing Ballistix and Blood Money I learnt Pascal and wrote several tools on the PC for development, and when I progressed to the PC Engine and its 65c02 assembler, I again wrote many tools in Pascal, including a full (and very powerful) remote debugger. The same goes for the SNES and 65816 assembler, while all it's tools were in Pascal on the PC. While coding on the SNES I started to learn x86 assembler on the PC and did lots of game stuff in Pascal and x86, including the prototype that lead to GTA.
I then moved onto C and used x86 for all rendering stuff, and eventually SIMD and C++. I did lots of JAVA here including mobile phone J2ME and Java Applet code, including some Java Virtual machine assembler (if you can believe that!). I then did PS1 and PS2 C, and learnt some MIPS assembler while also playing with the Gameboy advance and it's ARM assembler. At home I was also doing some Dreamcast stuff and some SH4. These days I hardly ever touch x86 assembler and it's mostly C/C+ or C#.NET, although I'll probably do some Delphi pascal again soon. There you go... a pocket history. I've missed loads out (particularly home projects), but it's pretty close.

So... Why do I bring all this up? Well, you can see that I've progressed through many languages and use whatever is appropriate. On the PC where the machines are fast (these days), I don't need to dip into assembler any more, while on the PSP I'll happily drop down to MIPS assembler again.

So what makes a language? Well, you have variables, loops, branches and function calls. In more object orientated languages, you also have objects you can access, but these certainly aren't a requirement. Old machines like the C64 or spectrum didn't have them, and they managed quite well without all that. You just arrange your data differently, but it's all pretty much the same thing.

GML has all of this. The loops and branches are there, as are variables and function calls. In every important respect, it's a full language. Some might even say it's much nicer to use as you don't have to worry about lots of things and it makes it much simpler to throw things together. There are lots of ways to write games, I used to write in BASIC as did many others, some still do. There's plenty of jobs around for Visual Basic programmers, so this is definitely a proper language, but I would never write a game in Visual Basic. I would use a language better suited to making a game. GameMaker gives you LOTS of tools and support to quickly make games, just like many other game making tools do, but very few pull everything together for you into such an easy to use package.

So to put this in context. There IS no professional language. You use whatever you must in order to make the application or game you want to make. If you make a game or application, and you sell it, then it's a professional language, it's that simple. There have been many games created and sold that were done inside GameMaker, and there will be many more. If you make a Tetris game, can the end user tell that it's written in Game Maker? Would they care? No of course not... If your talking about a game, then the end user just wants to have fun and only cares about if your application delivers that.

Now... if you want to make a game for console, then Game Maker might not be the right tool - yet!! But that may well come, then you'll have a much wider choice as to what the right tool is.

In the old days we used to mock C programmers for using slower languages than assembler. We could do at least twice the amount, but they would develop twice as quickly, and now we hardly use assembler at all! We're getting the same thing with GML. Unless your talking about making Halo or GTA 6, then GameMaker and GML may be just fine. I suspect all 2D games (pretty much) can be done with GameMaker, and a LOT quicker than if you tried with C++ and DirectX too.

So... ignore the requests to learn a proper language. Use what's right for you, and what makes your life easiest.

A cry for help!

Release of Amnesia: The Dark Descent is now getting dangerously close and we are hard at work polishing, fixing bugs, spell checking, feeding the beast and answering mails. In between this we also need to have time to do PR work, but unfortunately we do not have time nor resources to do as much as we like. We therefore would like to ask you, dear Reader, for a small favor.

To be able to continue making games we depend on people knowing about them. This is something that you could help out with! Doing so requires very little effort and below follows a list of a some things that would help us tremendously:

• If you see a preview, news post or whatnot about Amnesia, please Tweet, Facebook, Digg or in some other way post about it and help spread the word.
• If you find one of our blog posts interesting, up it on Reddit, Retweet and/or share it on Facebook (buttons found at the end of the post)
• If your favorite gaming blog / website / magazine does not cover Amnesia, drop them a mail saying they should. They are free to contact us here.
  
• If a website you frequent is lacking up-to-date information on the game, such as box-shot, release date, etc, mail them about it.
• Any sort of help in spreading, no matter how small, will be greatly appreciated by us! Many small streams eventually form a river. :)

That's all! Thanks to all of you who have supported us so far!

Uninvited Guest; Livestock Upset

So I just came early to work today at 22.00 and found the front door to our warehouse ajar. Thinking that perhaps some of our pets had escaped, I became a bit worried and carefully entered our damp dwelling.

Carrying a meat hook (someone forgot to tidy up last night?) I walked down to the cellar and saw that there was a mess at one of the table. There where also strange sounds coming from the cages and I had to use the cattle prod to calm the critters down. I counted them all twice and all stock seemed to be in place, allowing me to take a sigh of relief (we used to be six people in Frictional you know!).

Then I noticed that some of our notes, parchments and scrolls where missing. A thief! I also found a match lying in the mud on the floor, confirming that (most likely) one of the many hobos had sneaked in. This kind of confused me though, since I thought they learned their lesson last time in a quite tentacular way. It was also strange that they would take papers; I was not aware that they could read (perhaps nature called?).

Oh well. Now it is back to work, have some stuff to disect and refine. Just wanted you all to know abut this shady business in case you hear something!

Hmm.... now where did I put my essential salts?

Beta - The End is Nigh

This week we reached something that, not too long ago, was a merely distant dream:

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is in BETA

This means that the all needed assets are completed and that it is possible to play the game from start to finish. What is left now is just a bit of polish and minor additions. This does not mean that all is good and we can just relax though. The game is still rough around the edges at places and require quite a bit of work. However, we no longer have to worry about getting new things into the game. Now we can just focus on what is already there and make it as nice as we can.

It is quite astounding how far the game has gotten. We started out making the first proper content around two years ago, and since then the amount assets have just continued to grow. Looking through our project files I counted a total of:
106 Music files
1202 Model files
1533 Texture files
856 Sound files
This was just a very rough calculation though so I have surely missed a few. Also, there is still stuff left to add, so we are not done just yet!

It is also worth noting that this does not mean that a demo will be out shortly. For that you have to wait a few more months I'm afraid. However, we have sent out previews to a few places and some first impressions have started to drop in:

IGN thought that "Amnesia could be the scariest survival horror game in quite a long time".

Adventure Gamers said "I can already assure horror fans that another unsettling, potentially-pants-peeing adventure awaits".

Ripten pondered if it "might just be Frictional Games’ best title".

Gamer fill confessed that "I had to (yes, had to) turn Amnesia off after a short hour of play, so as to give my nerves a rest".

TGDB said "Het spel zou best wel eens één van de engste survival horror games in tijden kunnen zijn". Which I am not sure exactly what it means, but according to babel fish it was quite positive!

To hear things like this from an early preview (consisting of around the first 1/3 of the game) is extremely motivating and makes us very happy. Now we just need to make sure the full game delivers as well! More previews should pop up now that E3 is over, and be advised that they might contain spoilers.

Thanks to all who have supported us so far! We are very close* to a finished game now!

*An offical release date may or may not be announced next week.