PASCAL LUBAN
FOUNDER: THE GAME DESIGN STUDIO


After being in charge of adapting the scenario and handling the entire game design for the pre-production of Alone In The Dark - The New Nightmare (developed by Darkworks and published by Infogrames), PASCAL LUBAN recently founded his consultancy, The Game Design Studio, and currently serves as its General Manager.

Pascal's background in business and marketing (MBA from the University of Washington, Seattle), as well as his broad knowledge of game design, allows him to base his game design consultancy on improving the process of designing games; in other words, his ambition is not to do the game designs of his clients but rather to help them make better ones.

He's recently introduced Virtools Dev 2.0 to his consultancy's arsenal of tools to improve communication and teamwork, and he took some time to speak to Virtools about it.

For more info: http://www.gamedesignstudio.com





Images ©2001Darkworks/Infogrames

Interview by Frederique Krupa.

How did you get into the game design industry?

In a previous life, I was working for Panasonic France in charge of corporate planning. Had the chance to plan the launch of the 3DO platform in France, and I put a lot of enthusiasm in it. As you probably know, the platform bombed, and the project was killed before it ever got to market in France. It left me frustrated, since I've always been interested in games.

So I quit Panasonic, giving myself one year to break into the industry. I started by working on my own game designs which I sold to Virtual Studio. That's how I got in.

What are the necessary skills for doing game design well?

That's an excellent question. I would say there are five requirements. The first is good analytical skills. Creativity and new ideas are born from existing sources, and new genres are difficult to create. Even Einstein borrowed and built upon material that was already there. The first key is to look at what is done in games and analyze them very, very well. But pointing out what is good and bad in a game is not enough. The second key is to extract the essence of the game, to understand how a particular mix of features is well suited, or is not, to a particular type of game.

The second skill is being a good communicator because you have to keep communicating with other people on the team. But communication is not only about talking. A good communicator is a good listener above all. A game designer is at the hub of the development process. He doesn't make the game, but he's the central link to everybody else: the coders, the graphic artists, the sound designers, the scriptwriters and so on.

The third skill is to understand the game industry and know games well. You don't necessarily have to know every game, but you do have to know a few game genres really, really well. Some game designers like myself are specialized. As for myself, I specialize in action/adventure and strategy games. Why? Because those genres are already very broad and if you want to master them, you really have to dig in. You can't be a dilettante, it just doesn't work anymore.

The fourth skill is to be organized and rigorous in your thinking. Game design requires handling a lot of data, so you should not be disorganized. The last project I worked wound up being several thousand pages thick. To be able to use this document, it has to be well organized.

The fifth skill is that you also have to be diligent. When you start a project, it's a lot of fun. You're putting out ideas, everyone's enjoying it. There's a good team spirit and enthusiasm. But development is very long. You start of just focusing on the big picture, but as time goes on, you have to dig deeper and deeper into the design. In other words, you have to sort out and specify the little details, and that can get very boring at times. You have to be thorough and rigorous in your thinking to do a complete design of a game. You have to be tenacious because the work can be very painstaking.

Of the game designer's we've interviewed, we have identified three approaches to starting a project - develop a scenario, follow a game-genre heritage, or start from a technological premise. Is there another method?

Well, if I work for a client, my method is my client's method. In other words, I adapt to their needs and their strategy. Now, if I need to define a game concept from scratch, I first outline the emotions that I want the player to feel.

Taking Alone in the Dark 4 as an example, how did the project come about?

Darkworks who developed AITD4, was a very young studio at the time. They were working on a game called 1906, an action/adventure game set in the Arctic wilderness. I had been working on the gameplay aspects of this project as a consultant. They presented it to several publishers, and no one signed on. The 1906 demo was strong, and Infogrames noticed it. Infogrames contacted us to rejuvenate the Alone in the Dark franchise, and the project started from there. I worked on it from its inception.

How do you organize your work? Do you have a predefined working process?

I'm giving you a generic answer, because once again, it's on a case by case basis. First you work on the content to outline the main points of the game, key game mechanism, the theme, what we want the player to experience and so on.

Once this is done, the next step is to do a design document. It starts from the concept and elaborates. It defines all gameplay mechanisms, interface system and so on. It also described the main building blocks of the game. For example if this was a combat game, we would describe all the fighters, how they looked and what they did. We would also define the art style, which is very important. The goal of this document is to be able to budget the game. Here, you get an idea of what you have to do. How many 3D designs, how many animations, backgrounds and so on. It is also used by the coders to see what they have to code and where the challenges lie ahead. It is also used to sell the project to a publisher, since most of the time, a publisher will not buy a game on a simple concept. Anyone can put out a concept, but once again, implementation is the key to success. It reassures them that the developer has apprehended the difficulties and know how much it's going to cost.

To give you an idea, the first document is usually around 15 pages, the design document is around 150 pages and the third document, called the production document, takes up where the design document left off. You specify everything in detail.

Once again, this is in theory, it doesn't always work like that. In some cases the design document is very small so the publisher can test out ideas, and the production document is built up as we go.

In addition to the design document, can mocking up a game demo with Virtools Dev help sell the game to a publisher?

Certainly. It's become hard to sell a game design to a publisher without a demo that shows the principal gameplay mechanisms.

What are the tools of your trade and what is your relationship to these tools?

Books, a computer, a compiler, pen and paper, music to listen to while I work, and woods through which to walk while I think. Books educate me, the computer angers me, the compiler frustrates me, paper clarifies my thoughts, music harmonizes my mind, the woods maintain my perspective...

Will your working process change with Virtools Dev?

I think so, because we'll be able to test out game ideas and gameplay mechanisms much sooner. Not only will it make games better, it will make them faster to develop, and less expensive.

As a game designer, I would love to be able to modify the game being made, and sometimes we have tools to modify slight parameters of the game, but more often than not, we don't really have acces to the source. Let's say I want to change the position of an object in a game, I can't do it myself, I need to go involve another person... It takes time. A tool like Dev makes the development process less opaque. A game designer with Virtools can implement many changes him/herself.

What is the biggest technological limitation of your profession, and how do you deal with it?

The biggest limitation is less technological and more human. It's organization. Studios are not always well organized. Poor organization can really hamper a project and slow everything down. Most other industries have learned how to organize themselves. We're still learning how. Virtools is useful for that because not only is it a development tool, I see it as an organizational tool.

How do you see the profession evolving?

There are three major challenges that the game industry must overcome to mature. The first challenge was to find ways to code games. Everything had to be invented, the coding languages, the algorithms, the interfaces. That challenge was overcome in the late 1980s. We should be very grateful to the programmers and hardware manufacturers that did it. They built the cornerstone of our industry.

The second challenge is the content challenge. Now that we know how to program a game, what do we put into it? In the recent years, we've noticed a growing complexity and maturity in the types of games that are appearing. Games are also becoming more adult-oriented. Today, we are learning to develop games that target a much wider market than kids and hardcore gamers. Somebody once said that "content is king". This challenge, the content challenge, is being mastered right now.

The third challenge, which we are barely touching, is the process challenge. We know how to build games, we know what to put in them, but how do we do it? Too many game studios or publishers lose their shirts or go bankrupt because their projects went out of control. It's a problem linked to the development process. It's purely management issues. The movie industry has always impressed me because making a film is a huge, complex, costly task. But when you go to a set, everything is so timed, it's like an army. Why? Everyone knows their task because they have developed a good process. Regardless of the type of film, they have a scheme that they use over and over. So it works well. In the game industry we need to develop our own working processes and schemes. And Virtools, I think is a step in the right direction because it makes things a lot simpler to develop.

What are your future plans? Can you tell us about the Game Design Studio, and how you see your partnership with Virtools?

I founded the Game Design Studio a few months ago. Our mission is not to do game design for a studio but to help them do it. Which is very different. I noticed that different studios have different needs in term of game design. My solution is to bring them tailored answers to their needs. It's similar to the activities of a management consulting company. They have a portfolio of skills and know-how and they bring the right skill at the right time.

I'm partnering with Virtools because I feel we really share the same vision. I mentioned my clients have different needs. This can translate into one of my clients needing advice designing an interface. Another may need assistance in defining a game concep. A third may need help with scripts, and so on.

Virtools Dev works in the same fashion by filling different needs. For instance very young studios or startups, will need to demonstrate very quickly what they can do in terms of gameplay to a publisher. With Virtools Dev, they won't need to develop their own engine, so they create it very quickly. Not only can they show the core concept of the game, they can develop with a proven tool, which is reassuring for the publisher.

Bigger studios are different. They have the staff, and in many cases their own proprietary engines. Their need is different. Virtools Dev can help them with rationalization of their work process. In other words, they need to be as effective as possible. The main problem with the game industry is that it's still a very risky business. A game has a long development cycle and it's costly. And publishers don't know what they're going to get in the end, so it's very risky. A clear impact on the larger studios can be felt if the publishers shy away from new projects : publishers may not finance as many projects and can become much more overbearing in the development process. Virtools Dev can help rationalize the game development process by making teamwork faster, more effective and easier. This makes the development of game much faster. When a project takes less time to develop, it's less costly. It becomes less risky for the publisher. It's important for the big studios to start thinking this way.

We are in an industry driven by creativity, it's true. But there's a lot of room for a more rational management. Publishers are going to become more discriminant and less willing to take risks. They may become less skittish in the process, but it will make the task of selling a game even harder for a studio. Virtools can really help that. Virtools can rationalize costs and bring games to market much faster.

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