TGDXCON2008 PostMortem
by Pisal Setthawong · 12/07/2008 (9:46 am) · 2 comments
This blog is just an update from the earlier post here: www.garagegames.com/blogs/20289/15695
To summarize it quickly, the TGDXCON2008 is part of a series of seminar/conference that I've been involved in the planning, arranging, and hosting over the years since 2004. For TGDXCON2008, this time around, we had been hosting the event with IGDA Bangkok Chapter and the TGDX Web community (Thai Game Developer Exchange Website/Forum). We are gracious that The University of Thai Chamber of Commerce sponsored and supported the activiites of this seminar.
For this event, we have a number of activites which are summed as following:
1) A number of booths around the registration area (IGDA Bangkok Chapter Booth, Video Reel, and Game Showcase from Novaleaf and Geneve )
2) Seminar by invited speakers which the list is below
- A Game Designer's Perspective and Postmortem on Barnyard Blast (DS)
by Polsin Plussind (Sanuk Games)
- Bring Games to the XBOX360 Platform - Discussions from the Development of Biology Battle (XBOX Live Arcade)
by Jason Swearingen (Novaleaf)
- Game production with an Agile approach
by Chanon Sajjamanochai (ViquaGames)
3) An open optional session where attendees can meet assigned professional/experts in to discuss or engage in tutorial lessions from in a myriad to topics ranging from Game Design(Tutorial), Game Programming (Open Discussion), Computer Graphics(Open Discussion), Preparing Art Content for Games (Tutorial), IGDA Bangkok Chapter Volunteer Work. If attendees are not interested, they could either take a tour of the Computer Animation Lab @ UTCC or visit one of the booths.
In TGDXCON2008, we had about 250 people attending the event and it turned out pretty well. At the moment, I'm updated with Dr. Yodthong, the organizer at UTCC about trying to get the live-feed to be public. Unfortunately it would be based mostly on the local dialect though, with the exception of one of the seminar topics.
Anyway, I've included a short roundup, and interesting questions and issues from the seminar topics:
On the topic, "A Game Designer's Perspective and Postmortem on Barnyard Blast (DS)" by Polsin Plussind (Sanuk Games), it is a straight forward discussion on postmortem of the Barnyard Blast (DS) involving the evolution of the game from its initial roots when it was done as a side project in the company, when it was pitched and sold as a product to distributors, and design decisions that was made by the whole team along the way. This ended up with a short game design talk on game and level design issues and trade-offs involved. A quick interesting talk was the mention of how difficulty balancing is important as it is related with user fun, and the length of a typical run through of the game - which requires much balance testing.
During the Q&A sesion, it seems that many of the business oriented people were asking about figures and discussions about he success or failure of the game on the foreign market. It was answered by Yan (CEO of Sanuk Games) who came up to answer those questions. The game wasn't quite a qualified success, but it open up new markets for Sanuk Games with new out-sourcing options for the NDS platform which paid itself over time was the conclusion that was reached. Questions about the game design include the under utilizing of the touch screen in the Barnyard Blast game, which was due to feature, design, and time requirement issues. Additional game design discusion was continued later in the Open Session in which Polsin hosted a game design tutorial after the seminar topics were over.
On the second topic, "Bringing Games to the XBOX360 Platform - Discussions from the Development of Biology Battle (XBOX Live Arcade)" by Jason Swearingen (Novaleaf) was in a nutshell a quick round up of how Novaleaf was setup and the steps and decisions made before they could finish up and market Biology Battle which was released a few weeks back. A quick note is that Biology Battle was created by Jason and a team of 4 newly graduates with no professional experience. A huge chunk of the talk was talking about what teams should be careful about, the tail-long advantage of online distribution, and about what consideration should be made for making export quality games. One interesting note is a huge talk on cultural differences especially between American and Thai/Asian/European tastes which was extended from the talk from the previous section. e.g. Big Eyes Small Mouth (Anime) might not suite well to all tastes :P
On the last topic, Game production with an Agile approach by Chanon Sajjamanochai (ViquaGames) is quite a controversal topic. Considering ViquaGames to be one of southeast asia's better known casual game developers, it might surprise some that in the organization, there are no dedicated Game Designers. The game design decisions were done on with feedback from the whole team, though Chanon as the game producer takes final decisions on the direction of the project. The rest of the talk is a discussion of using the Agile and SCRUMM techniques and how it is different from the traditional waterfall method. The talk then continues on how it works well with the process of developing games especially games such as casual games and how it could be applied directly. As the talk requires knowledge from people who have developed game and have learnt about software methodologies, this talk was quite interesting for those who understood, but quite confusing for those who don't. Questions at the end includes question on how could a dedicated game designer might help ViquaGames (or is the current model better?) and issues about seperating the old development methods that we know is different from the Agile method. There isn't much to answer on those as these are software methodology and it varies from organizations to organizations and is difficult to quantify.
Some of the comments that were heard frequently from reading through feedback at our website (http://forums.thaigamedevx.com/index.php?topic=1940) and reading through the questionaire feedbacks are as follows:
1) Some of the seminar topics were too difficult for many people. (this was echoed quite often with attendees who are students or are not involved directly in game development)
2) Alot of attendees liked the open discussion session, but complaint about the noise generated by many different discussions in the same room.
3) They wanted the exhibition booth to be open so that the general public could show their work
4) Registration was confusing, the walkin registration takes too long!
Some of the pictures of the event could be found on this following web album: picasaweb.google.com/pisalST/TGDXCON2008WebAlbumVersion
So after all and all here are some of the usual suspects in post mortems :P
Where we went right
- I finally am not the head organizer :P Yahoo!!!
- UTCC was a great host :)
- lots of people from a wide range of professions. This range from professional game developers from the gruntwork to management, media, related businesses, students, and lecturers.
- The open session format just introduced in this iteration was deemed very popular and would be adopted in future events
- We had local media covering our event, making it easy to get the word out. We would like to thank you GConsole, OnlineStation, FutureGamer, Manager, and many other independent bloggers and online websites for helping us promote this!
- Free food and drinks! (We had Fisho to sponsor some additional snacks!)
- Cutting off the token of appreciation part of the seminar really speeds things up!
- Kind of Informal and Fun!
- All volunteer work :P
Where we went wrong
- There was a bottle-neck at he head organizer at UTCC organizer as he accepted too much work. During the last few weeks, we all had volunteers to chip in to get a few things done so that things are on plan.
- The website was uploaded late.
- The registration on site was messy. The walk-in had only 1 computer instead of 3, so the walk-in registration was alot slower than anticipated (didn't know about it until the registration was on progress).
- The registration format was changed just when it started making staff confused :(
- Some of the important staff came late (VTR staff, registration)
- Not enough water to go around.
- The open discussion was a little to noisy. We might consider having many private rooms instead of going into different parts of the seminar room.
- Hierachy issues, chain of command and staff have not communicated too well. In this case, we had like two teams, the infrastructure at UTCC and parts of the organizing staff. We didn't have any meetings which was a big big mistake. Everyone needs to know everyone instead of having a leader talk with a leader.
- The beginner friendly session of the open-session was hosted too late. This caused many of the newer people (students) to leave for home before the session.
What could be improved?
- We had planned to have a showcase booth where people could show off their work - in which we wanted indie developers to show their stuff. However due to the nature of indie developers here that usually do not mingle too much with the web community when they are around, we were not sure whether we could get enough people. The next time, we might declare this along time before to make sure we can get people here.
- We should make sure some of the key events such as registration and website be done earlier based on the time plan.
- We might want to add more breaks so that people won't get too tired.
- We might want to address the issue of beginner level and advanced level topics better. Can't entirely support both groups unless we keep tutorials and seminars on same time slots. Would still be thinking on that.
- Could have a few more volunteers :P
What will happen in the future?
We are currently working on the host for the next year. There are a few interesting places and suggestions, and we are semi-working on the issues at the moment (we all have our day time job to work on :P). In addition to that, we are looking for interesting topics to cover in the new event, people to show off their games, and volunteers to help out. If you would like to help out, give me a poke :P
To summarize it quickly, the TGDXCON2008 is part of a series of seminar/conference that I've been involved in the planning, arranging, and hosting over the years since 2004. For TGDXCON2008, this time around, we had been hosting the event with IGDA Bangkok Chapter and the TGDX Web community (Thai Game Developer Exchange Website/Forum). We are gracious that The University of Thai Chamber of Commerce sponsored and supported the activiites of this seminar.
For this event, we have a number of activites which are summed as following:
1) A number of booths around the registration area (IGDA Bangkok Chapter Booth, Video Reel, and Game Showcase from Novaleaf and Geneve )
2) Seminar by invited speakers which the list is below
- A Game Designer's Perspective and Postmortem on Barnyard Blast (DS)
by Polsin Plussind (Sanuk Games)
- Bring Games to the XBOX360 Platform - Discussions from the Development of Biology Battle (XBOX Live Arcade)
by Jason Swearingen (Novaleaf)
- Game production with an Agile approach
by Chanon Sajjamanochai (ViquaGames)
3) An open optional session where attendees can meet assigned professional/experts in to discuss or engage in tutorial lessions from in a myriad to topics ranging from Game Design(Tutorial), Game Programming (Open Discussion), Computer Graphics(Open Discussion), Preparing Art Content for Games (Tutorial), IGDA Bangkok Chapter Volunteer Work. If attendees are not interested, they could either take a tour of the Computer Animation Lab @ UTCC or visit one of the booths.
In TGDXCON2008, we had about 250 people attending the event and it turned out pretty well. At the moment, I'm updated with Dr. Yodthong, the organizer at UTCC about trying to get the live-feed to be public. Unfortunately it would be based mostly on the local dialect though, with the exception of one of the seminar topics.
Anyway, I've included a short roundup, and interesting questions and issues from the seminar topics:
On the topic, "A Game Designer's Perspective and Postmortem on Barnyard Blast (DS)" by Polsin Plussind (Sanuk Games), it is a straight forward discussion on postmortem of the Barnyard Blast (DS) involving the evolution of the game from its initial roots when it was done as a side project in the company, when it was pitched and sold as a product to distributors, and design decisions that was made by the whole team along the way. This ended up with a short game design talk on game and level design issues and trade-offs involved. A quick interesting talk was the mention of how difficulty balancing is important as it is related with user fun, and the length of a typical run through of the game - which requires much balance testing.
During the Q&A sesion, it seems that many of the business oriented people were asking about figures and discussions about he success or failure of the game on the foreign market. It was answered by Yan (CEO of Sanuk Games) who came up to answer those questions. The game wasn't quite a qualified success, but it open up new markets for Sanuk Games with new out-sourcing options for the NDS platform which paid itself over time was the conclusion that was reached. Questions about the game design include the under utilizing of the touch screen in the Barnyard Blast game, which was due to feature, design, and time requirement issues. Additional game design discusion was continued later in the Open Session in which Polsin hosted a game design tutorial after the seminar topics were over.
On the second topic, "Bringing Games to the XBOX360 Platform - Discussions from the Development of Biology Battle (XBOX Live Arcade)" by Jason Swearingen (Novaleaf) was in a nutshell a quick round up of how Novaleaf was setup and the steps and decisions made before they could finish up and market Biology Battle which was released a few weeks back. A quick note is that Biology Battle was created by Jason and a team of 4 newly graduates with no professional experience. A huge chunk of the talk was talking about what teams should be careful about, the tail-long advantage of online distribution, and about what consideration should be made for making export quality games. One interesting note is a huge talk on cultural differences especially between American and Thai/Asian/European tastes which was extended from the talk from the previous section. e.g. Big Eyes Small Mouth (Anime) might not suite well to all tastes :P
On the last topic, Game production with an Agile approach by Chanon Sajjamanochai (ViquaGames) is quite a controversal topic. Considering ViquaGames to be one of southeast asia's better known casual game developers, it might surprise some that in the organization, there are no dedicated Game Designers. The game design decisions were done on with feedback from the whole team, though Chanon as the game producer takes final decisions on the direction of the project. The rest of the talk is a discussion of using the Agile and SCRUMM techniques and how it is different from the traditional waterfall method. The talk then continues on how it works well with the process of developing games especially games such as casual games and how it could be applied directly. As the talk requires knowledge from people who have developed game and have learnt about software methodologies, this talk was quite interesting for those who understood, but quite confusing for those who don't. Questions at the end includes question on how could a dedicated game designer might help ViquaGames (or is the current model better?) and issues about seperating the old development methods that we know is different from the Agile method. There isn't much to answer on those as these are software methodology and it varies from organizations to organizations and is difficult to quantify.
Some of the comments that were heard frequently from reading through feedback at our website (http://forums.thaigamedevx.com/index.php?topic=1940) and reading through the questionaire feedbacks are as follows:
1) Some of the seminar topics were too difficult for many people. (this was echoed quite often with attendees who are students or are not involved directly in game development)
2) Alot of attendees liked the open discussion session, but complaint about the noise generated by many different discussions in the same room.
3) They wanted the exhibition booth to be open so that the general public could show their work
4) Registration was confusing, the walkin registration takes too long!
Some of the pictures of the event could be found on this following web album: picasaweb.google.com/pisalST/TGDXCON2008WebAlbumVersion
So after all and all here are some of the usual suspects in post mortems :P
Where we went right
- I finally am not the head organizer :P Yahoo!!!
- UTCC was a great host :)
- lots of people from a wide range of professions. This range from professional game developers from the gruntwork to management, media, related businesses, students, and lecturers.
- The open session format just introduced in this iteration was deemed very popular and would be adopted in future events
- We had local media covering our event, making it easy to get the word out. We would like to thank you GConsole, OnlineStation, FutureGamer, Manager, and many other independent bloggers and online websites for helping us promote this!
- Free food and drinks! (We had Fisho to sponsor some additional snacks!)
- Cutting off the token of appreciation part of the seminar really speeds things up!
- Kind of Informal and Fun!
- All volunteer work :P
Where we went wrong
- There was a bottle-neck at he head organizer at UTCC organizer as he accepted too much work. During the last few weeks, we all had volunteers to chip in to get a few things done so that things are on plan.
- The website was uploaded late.
- The registration on site was messy. The walk-in had only 1 computer instead of 3, so the walk-in registration was alot slower than anticipated (didn't know about it until the registration was on progress).
- The registration format was changed just when it started making staff confused :(
- Some of the important staff came late (VTR staff, registration)
- Not enough water to go around.
- The open discussion was a little to noisy. We might consider having many private rooms instead of going into different parts of the seminar room.
- Hierachy issues, chain of command and staff have not communicated too well. In this case, we had like two teams, the infrastructure at UTCC and parts of the organizing staff. We didn't have any meetings which was a big big mistake. Everyone needs to know everyone instead of having a leader talk with a leader.
- The beginner friendly session of the open-session was hosted too late. This caused many of the newer people (students) to leave for home before the session.
What could be improved?
- We had planned to have a showcase booth where people could show off their work - in which we wanted indie developers to show their stuff. However due to the nature of indie developers here that usually do not mingle too much with the web community when they are around, we were not sure whether we could get enough people. The next time, we might declare this along time before to make sure we can get people here.
- We should make sure some of the key events such as registration and website be done earlier based on the time plan.
- We might want to add more breaks so that people won't get too tired.
- We might want to address the issue of beginner level and advanced level topics better. Can't entirely support both groups unless we keep tutorials and seminars on same time slots. Would still be thinking on that.
- Could have a few more volunteers :P
What will happen in the future?
We are currently working on the host for the next year. There are a few interesting places and suggestions, and we are semi-working on the issues at the moment (we all have our day time job to work on :P). In addition to that, we are looking for interesting topics to cover in the new event, people to show off their games, and volunteers to help out. If you would like to help out, give me a poke :P
About the author
An Educator moonlighting as the Technical Lead at the indie game development studio called Flying Pig Game Studio
Torque 3D Owner Deborah M. Fike
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