Postmortem: SANITARIUM
By Chris Pasetto
Gamasutra
December 4, 1998
Vol. 2: Issue 47
Originally
Published in Game Developer Magazine, November 1998.
| Postmortem: SANITARIUM |
Introduction-
The Designers' Tale
The
Artists' Tale
The
Programmers' Tale
The Sweet
|
SANITARIUM represented a significant success for DreamForge in several areas. Many of these have to do with our personal sense of accomplishment in making this game, but others are things we learned along the way.
1. BRING
IT ON HOME. As a game that was designed in-house, an enormous amount
of energy and personal pride went into SANITARIUM.
Remember that this project began as a few guys hanging out after work
saying, "Wouldn't it be cool if we made the game that we would enjoy playing?"
Even after months of work, we weren't sure if the game would ever reach
the shelves. As the team's hard labor began to bear fruit, the whole company's
energy and enthusiasm grew, sustaining us through the crunch periods.
That sense of personal ownership in a product cannot be underestimated.
It defined the experience of SANITARIUM for us
as developers.
Not only that, but our staff offered us an inexpensive focus group. Fairly
early on in the project, the ideas we designers had been bouncing off
one another seemed like stale old superballs. We needed more outside opinions
to give the project perspective. We invited small clusters of DreamForge
employees to join us in the design room. Like a nightmare ride at Disney
World, we took these groups through the game puzzle by puzzle, plot twist
by plot twist. Questions and comments gave us valuable information - what
looked interesting and what seemed confusing.
As a result of those walkthroughs, it became painfully clear that Level
6 of our design just wasn't cutting it. It was as though Al Gore had walked
into the room. People's eyes glazed over at that point in the walkthrough;
yawns were abundant. We looked at each other and said, "This is not good."
So we asked people, What would be clever, interesting, and creepy? Bugs
seemed to be the answer. Based on staff input, the resulting Level 6 of
SANITARIUM is much stronger and enjoyable than
our original design.
2. HOME MOVIES.
From the very beginning of the development cycle, we wanted to give SANITARIUM
a dark, cinematic feel. In most games, the cut scenes are treated like a
necessary evil or worse - a pageant of plug-ins du jour meant to
dazzle viewers and draw their attention away from the game play. We were
determined to establish a style for the cinematic cut scenes, to make them
an integral part of the game. We especially wanted the flashback cut scenes
to deliver an emotional impact to the viewer, because they dealt directly
with Max's life, love, and suffering. To support that idea, we shot the
scenes to mimic the letterbox look of movies. Our cinematic coordinator,
Marty Stoltz, drew upon his filmmaking background to guide us in precise
cinematic screen direction. Joe Skivolocke also lent his post-production
expertise to the effects for all memory cinematics. A lot of work went into
ensuring correct camera usage and post-production of cinematic scenes -
especially for the flashback sequences, which were meant really to touch
the player emotionally.
 |
All cinematics came into the world as storyboards - carefully laid out in Adobe Premiere and passed on to the artists. The 3D staff worked from storyboards to create raw .AVIs. Our post-production team worked with these .AVIs, touching up the rough edges and applying special effects using Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, and Strata MediaPaint. Some of the raw .AVI material had to be thrown out in the end (because it didn't work, because something looked wrong, because one of the lighting crew members was eating a sandwich in the background). Still, our shooting ratio was about 3:1 (for every second of cinematic material that we used, 3 more seconds were tossed out) - that's pretty good when you consider that the average movie has a 20:1 shooting ratio. The polished cut scenes that went into the game were the best DreamForge had ever produced, anchored thematically by a unique and consistent vision.
3. MODULAR FURNITURE. We had all worked on other games and were familiar with the potential threat of cutting levels, puzzles, and whatever else seemed expendable when the crunch was on and no amount of Mountain Dew could keep us going. From the beginning of the design, we prepared for such eventualities by structuring the game in a modular fashion. We constructed the game in portions that would add to game play and advance the story, but wouldn't detract from the game overall if they were taken out. In the end, we were able to keep the amputations to a minimum. A big combat zone and some blow-up puzzles took a trip through the plumbing, but otherwise the cuts were fairly minor. Modular design at the start of the project ensured that the final game would remain true to its initial vision.
4. HEY, NICE ASSETS. As an experiment, lead programmer Chad Freeman implemented an asset management system utilizing a Paradox database, which centralized all of the game assets in one place. Tools developed in Delphi and Visual C++ accessed the assets from this database. This solution provided several benefits. For one thing, we could easily analyze the asset data and take appropriate actions when total asset size broke the budget for a level. We could also view filenames and descriptions of individual assets. The database system let us group assets by levels or by other criteria. A single game level had hundreds of art and sound files. Searching for a particular asset by the filename alone would have been the equivalent of finding the fat guy wearing the Star Trek shirt at a sci-fi convention. Naturally, the ability to sort through assets quickly saved time and energy.
Because this process was experimental, we weren't able to fully exploit the database system. For example, the programmers were the only ones who utilized the system during the level-creation process. However, Chad Freeman would eventually expand the system so that artists and sound technicians could add assets to the database and level creators could access them directly from there, eliminating redundant file storage. In addition, the system could also store level information, allowing these same types of reporting, sorting, and other benefits to be extended to the levels themselves. Overall, the development of SANITARIUM never made full use of these database management tools. As game content grows larger and larger (DVD and beyond), using database tools for data storage will help developers more and more.
We also utilized Visual SourceSafe for the first time during SANITARIUM's development. Historically, programmers have been beset with the extremely time-consuming and tedious job of hand-merging code. Never again. Like a divine beam of light shining into our otherwise dank and shadowy cubicles, SourceSafe made code merging far easier and more reliable. SourceSafe also has other benefits, including the ability to keep a precise revision history of your code, so that you can painlessly retreat from the inevitable "bad move" programming-wise.
We chose SourceSafe specifically because it allowed multiple check-outs; the structure of our C files prior to adopting SourceSafe was such that it was common for more than one person to be working on a single file at the same time. SourceSafe also allows a project to be branched off; letting one person work on a demo while another continues development of the game. The projects can later be re-merged, so that fixes in the demo can be integrated into the main source.
5. PROJECT MANAGEMENT FOR THE INSANE. Using Microsoft Project and his own devious tracking tables prepared in Microsoft Word, project manager Scot Noel would recalculate our progress every week to two weeks. This method accounted for the progress of every single game element, from blow-up puzzles to art fixes to code implementations. GANTT charts demonstrated the flow of work between departments and individuals. These enabled us to respond promptly to the most critical problems by showing how the late delivery of a particular asset might throw off the final ship date by days or weeks.
Critical paths were plotted using PERT charts in Microsoft Project. Upon seeing these Daedalean webs of near-infinite complexity, many of us felt that Scot had gone, finally and irrevocably, insane. But once we penetrated the mysteries of the PERT chart, we saw the value of tracking the sensitive interdependencies of tasks through critical paths. As different departments, or even particular individuals, caught up with one another or moved ahead of expected schedules, the critical path would change. Armed with this knowledge, Scot could walk up to any given programmer and say, "The critical path for this game is going right through you at the moment."
Such monitoring helped direct the pressure and motivate the right people, letting others go home and get a good night's sleep. As are all systems, the PERT charts were imperfect. Some people always seemed to be on the critical path, most notably Chad Freeman, the game's lead programmer. All of us here at DreamForge hope that Chad will be able to leave the hospital soon. We already have a respirator set up alongside his desk.
6. PUBLISHER BUY-IN. Our publisher, ASC Games, believed in what we were trying to accomplish and provided valuable input throughout development. They behaved as if they were buying into our vision rather than just purchasing it. For the most part, they took a hands-off approach, and only required changes that they were convinced would significantly improve the quality and salability of the game. Travis Williams, SANITARIUM's executive producer, put a lot of heart into the project - not to mention all the cool prerelease games and toys he sent us. We were so grateful, we put his head in the game.
We were very pleased with ASC Games' strong commitment to marketing SANITARIUM. The box is a work of art in itself, and the rule book has received praise for its strength and simplicity. The magazine ads are impressive and true to the spirit of our game. One simple act for which the team is eternally grateful: ASC Games' marketing department didn't give away the game plot on the box or in the manual. It's always a relief when you don't see the central mystery of your game printed in big red letters across the back of the game box.
