Sexual Aspect of Gaming

During our last meeting, the artists brought up their ideas for female armor. This, of course, was in drastic contrast to male armor that was practical and realistic. Historically speaking, women have worn armor designed for men whenever they were deployed to the battlefield. Because of the cost involved in designing and manufacturing armor, and the relatively few number of women who are required to wear it, armor has never been specifically designed for women (except, of course, for Roman gladiators, who often wore armor exposing one breast).

But in our society, sex sells. Both Hollywood and the game industry push the idea of form fitting armor for women, often to the point of booby cups and armored bras, and it has not only become acceptable, but expected. Of course, this notion is backed by the "fact" that the vast majority of gamers are teenage boys. However, According to ESA, a 2008 survey concluded that 60% of gamers were male, and the average age was 35. In fact, News Week concluded that only 3% fewer girls aged 8 to 12 play games compared to boys the same age and 7% less between the ages of 13 to 17.

The article contributes the ever growing social factor of games for this substantial increase in female gamers. But it also means that designers must focus on more than the "teenage boy" customer if they hope to produce a successful game. Does this mean that more conservative character design should be applied to all games?

Absolutely not. Game design is about bringing a vision into reality, not about bending to the current social morays. For games like Age of Conan, expressive sexuality is a primary component of the lore and appeal. For a game like Firestorm, it is very difficult to add strong sexual undertones in a universe ruled by practicality. It is cheaper and more efficient for a military to adopt a "one size fits all" approach to clothing, body armor, and weapons.

So the question is, at what point would character design be the most optimal for both the spirit of the game and appeal to players who desire a more stylized approach? I've given it a bit of thought, and I've come to the conclusion that this is an opportunity, not a challenge.

The Human empire in Firestorm stretches across 400 different planets, each with their own resources for basic material production. It is entirely possible for BDU's from one planet to allow for a more comfortable fit on women, while another is desperate enough that production must be maximized by producing only one type of product. For mercenaries, this produces a large and fluctuating market of goods. For players, it means finding the armor they want in a particular style is both challenging and rewarding. It also allows for more creative freedom, as armor or weapons from different cultures can appear drastically different.

Bearing this in mind, it is worth mentioning that games like Modern Warfare 2 have no sexual undertones whatsoever, but still sell a record number of copies. Designing a game is about creating something that is, above all else, fun to play.

Design as an Artform

I'm sort of settling into my role as lead designer of Firestorm. I am still not entirely comfortable using this title, as I feel everyone contributes equally to the design process, whether it is through concept art, 3d modeling, or sound. Each element is equally important to the design process, and each of the artists responsible for the ultimate look and feel of the game.

Development continues slowly, as we are all new to the UDK, and are spending time with tutorials and simply playing with some of the features. I spent some time with Kismet yesterday, and I'm very impressed at how smoothly it works to build scripts that may otherwise become tedious. My past experience has been with NW Script for the Neverwinter Nights Toolset. While NW Script is powerful, writing code can be an arduous process when you are still learning how all the functions... function.

The map ideas are almost finalized, and we are moving to migrate the website to professional hosting on Friday (at 8pm). I am planning on featuring part of the story with the migration, so keep an eye out for that. The new website will be at www.armorygames.net, though our forums will remain in place for the time being.

I am eager to begin advertising and recruiting with a more professional backdrop than previously, and I am hoping to fill the vacancy for concept artist.

Story Progress

I've been slowly progressing with the story. The original that I wrote takes place before this, but didn't really meet our needs for a game. Thus, I'm pushing the story ahead about 250 years, which means that I need to make considerable adjustments to the state of the Helix Stars. All four playable races have been officially locked in, but they will not be announced for a while yet. There is still substantial work to be done on classes, and we lack a concept artist which are needed at the earliest stages of development.

In the meantime, work is being done on the website and levels are being planned and developed in conjunction with game mechanics. We have a physics programmer, so that should streamline the inclusion of destructible environments and the like. Our modeler is currently hard at work making objects for map population, so I would say development on Firestorm is well underway at this point.

First Meeting

Had the first meeting at Borders in Puyallup. After reviewing several design decisions, we decided to go ahead with basic development of a simple level to both recruit and to get a better feel for the UDK. I'm making the the level while Russell creates two basic classes to demonstrate the RPG capabilities of the UT3 engine.

After doing some administrative work, I posted recruitment ads on the UDK forums, ConceptArt.org forums, and craigslist. I was amazed at how many people responded to the ad so quickly. I am currently looking through and reviewing them all. We set a time frame of 2 weeks for the demo level, so I will need to have the level built by Sunday, while also completing Cisco coursework and my normal day (night, actually) job.

I will endeavor to have answers to those who applied by Friday. The initial plan was for a team of roughly 15, but if we are all local, we may be able to extend that number. I also decided on the The Armory for a company name. This early on, we could change it if necessary. It would only be a few lines of text, but at least it protects our intellectual property rights. Those who are interested in publishing or exposing unfinished work should have a read on this site: http://newretro.org/

The opening shots

So the website is mostly functional, but lacks substantial content. I haven't decided on a hosting provider yet, so I'm currently hosting it on my private line. I don't expect millions of hits in the next month, so I doubt my ISP will care too much.

I'm still drawing up much of the planning required to start full game development. There are a lot of resources that need to be accounted for, including communication and recruiting. Speaking of recruiting, I will be stepping this up in the coming days. We pretty much need anyone and everyone with programming, graphic, media, or audio skills. Once the website goes fully live, I'll start posting in forums, craigslist, and any other mediums I can conjure up.

Mostly, I'm just squaring myself up for the road ahead. Game development isn't easy in the best of times, and can be nearly impossible in the worst. Nevertheless, I have a clear and distinct picture of our final objectives, and I believe I can carry the team through.