Representing the DePaul Game Elite were:
- Jay Pecho -- Project & Tech Lead
- Matt Lazar -- Producer
- Kyle Sullivan -- Visual Design Lead
- Alex Seropian – Game Designer in Residence
[GDN] What would be a nutshell description of the bump-mapping technique used in DTF according to Kyle Sullivan’s inspiring video about the art style process of DTF?
JAY: In a nutshell, we did not use bump-mapping in our game. It was talked about many times but when it came down to it, we just didn’t have enough time to implement it successfully. Bump-mapping should complement the visuals and with proper time I believe we could have made it do that. The second part is that our game is already taxing on the graphics end and adding bump-mapping successfully would have meant doing it in a way that did not tax the graphics card, which again would take extra time.
KYLE: What you’re seeing in the video (at the 2:42 mark?) is likely a Maya render proposing what the game would look like if we actually implemented bump mapping. However, after the feedback we’ve gotten from players it’s clear to us that our game could definitely benefit from some kind of bump mapping or surface texture other than just the moving lines. Given that development continues on Devil’s Tuning Fork, there’s a good chance that we’ll play
with the way surfaces look in our game .
[GDN] Kyle also mentions the dilemma of going down the rabbit’s hole, could you elaborate on those problems and solution you seem to have experienced during the art style process of DTF.
KYLE: Oh man, I could fill a book on the iterative art process our game went through. The important thing to remember is that the entire project was one giant experiment taken on by the DePaul Game Elite team. After our research and many brainstorms, we as designers and artists knew what we wanted to do with the game, but we didn’t know how to do it. “How do you make a game about echolocation?” “What does echolocation look like?” “What kind of experience would our game create?” We approached the project almost like scientists, trying to uncover something new by experimenting with variables. “Hey, I wonder what the game will look like if we make the stripes move?” “What looks cooler in-game: a cube or a cylinder?” I think Devil’s Tuning Fork has received a lot of attention because we’ve really challenged traditional viewing mechanics in the first-person shooter genre. Starting out, we didn’t know what our final product would look like, but we knew we’d try our hardest to make it as different as possible. It’s the same process you would follow if you were trying to reinvent the wheel.
[GDN] Alexander Seropian, a distinguished designer in residence as well, is known to have experimented with a new game development method. Were the DePaul Game Elites inspired by those ideas, in order to make this project completed in time and with quality?
MATT: Alex advised and inspired us on many things including the production. While we did not use outsourcing (we had no money at all), we did concentrate on keeping the production as lean as possible. A good example of this is how we tackled the game’s mechanics. We split the team up into small strike teams to create the art, play, and code for each of them. This allowed us to develop and test mechanics quickly without fear of one breaking the others.
JAY: One of the main parts of Alex’s ideology, though, that did help us was his schedule. He wanted us to have the game done in 3 months and spend the last 3 months testing and polishing the game. While we weren’t actually able to have the game finished by September as the initial schedule projected, we did have a good part of our visualization done by then, so we were able to completely focus on gameplay, which is what we needed.
