Create, share, play: the new era of expressive games

http://media.edge-online.com/wp-cont...60-610x342.jpgGames like Minecraft have turned players into more creative, social beings – as singleplayer games become less important, connected multiplayer experiences are showing us the potential future of play.

Back in 2006, the Far Cry 2 team went to Paris to present the game concept to Ubisoft management for approval. One of the biggest hurdles we needed to overcome was to prove that we could deliver the ambitious goals of the project under the time and budget constraints we were given. We were pitching the idea that we could deliver a 50km2 open-world firstperson shooter with about 100 hours of gameplay, built by a team smaller than the one that had delivered the 12-hour linear experience of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.A huge part of our pitch was a video that showed a 60:1 time-lapse screen capture of eight hours of work from a single level designer and a single artist working together to build 1km2 of our game world, delivering both visuals and gameplay to a shippable (for pre-alpha) quality, starting completely from scratch.The artist started by using noise patterns and filters in Photoshop to generate a grayscale image that would become the height field for the environment. He then painted in textures and foliage, set a water level, painted in a road and river, created a foliage system, and generated a jungle and a savannah. He threw a few structures in a clearing, adjusted the entire environment to look good in different lighting and weather scenarios, and handed it off to a designer.The designer moved the buildings around, added some AI, and threw in some patrol paths and guard points. He added some mounted weapon emplacements, cover, vehicles and animals, and set up some burnable areas (this was before fire propagation was a fully systemic feature). He tweaked and tuned the gameplay by diving into and out of the game repeatedly (the game could be compiled and launched from the editor in an instant, even at this early stage) to make sure everything was working and fun. The eight-minute video and the playable output that it produced was instrumental in convincing Ubisoft we would be able to materially deliver on the promise of the game.

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