House M.D. Game Development Diary
Legacy Interactive has recently announced the upcoming release of House MD for DS and PC
House M.D. Game Development Diary
Legacy Interactive has recently announced the upcoming release of House MD for DS and PC, a hilarious medical puzzler based on the politically incorrect television show by the same name. Developer Jonathan Cooperson has been keeping an insightful diary of his progress, and comments on licensed vs original game content in his developer diary. Below is a snippet and some preview screenshots.
House M.D. Developer’s Diary #2 by Jonathan Cooperson
Last we left off, the script was under way and we were in the early phases of working on programming and art on our House, M.D. game. But before I get more into that I want to briefly touch on the middle part of that development
process: The design phase. This is perhaps the most important part of the game—making process as it sets the foundation and scope of the entire game.
So here’s the low down on working with licensed materials: it is completely different from designing an original title and a whole new monster in and of itself. Normally when designing a game with original characters you can hone and craft the story around the gameplay to work how you need it. If you want to have the player jump across a river from rock to rock to get to the cave where they have to search for the new, better weapon to use, you can construct the story to lead that way.
With a licensed game you already have developed characters, an established story format and settings defined for you. This means you must craft the gameplay to fit in that pre-existing world rather than the other way around. This often proves to be far more difficult than you might think. That said, the pros of working with a licensed entity offer great benefits that you can’t get from an original title such as more established characters and settings, instant recognition of the title, and a built-in fan base (and with a built-in fan base of 82 million world-wide, who can complain?).
The real challenge with House was to create fun gameplay but still have it be coherent within the story being presented. I did not want the game to be a series of disjointed mini-games where we say “OK, now complete this Sudoku puzzle and that will give you a clue as to why the patient is dying...” Instead I wanted to have the player feel like they were part of House’s team so we could tell them “OK, the patient may be dying of illness X. Now go perform a Lumbar Puncture, do a complete blood count and search their house for toxins.“ This meant throwing most known mini-game conventions out of the window and designing gameplay based on what needed to be done in each specific case.
For this we utilized the assistance of several design sources; Alchemic Productions (designers on Clive Barker’s Jericho) helped with some overarching ideas of the mini-games involved providing some coherence to all the gameplay.
We then employed the assistance of Phil Campbell (designer of Nancy Drew
Dossier: Lights, Camera, Curses), who helped us refine some of the gameplay and make the interface work better for the unique interactivity of the Nintendo DS.
After putting all this input combined with the experience of Craig Brannon, our Executive Producer, and Genaro Avila, my Assistant Producer, we had a great variety of gameplay at hand that really fit seamlessly into the world of House.
Then came time to find someone to make this idea a reality. This is where Glyphic studios came into the picture. With a strong background in programming for the Nintendo DS, they immediately offered up the possibility for some amazing techniques for integrating the look and feel of the show into a gaming scenario.
We knew we didn’t want the game to look too “cartoony” because that just seemed like a bad match for the license and we didn’t want to blow the whole budget trying to render 3D models of all the characters (not to mention animating them). Animated 3D models can be a pretty strange way to look at characters based on real-life counterparts, also. That was really the key; these characters are already real, established people (well, real-life actors, at least). People know them already so why reinvent them? We ultimately decided to utilize still images, in a similar vein as the majority of casual games on the market, to establish the situations and dialog and the characters will come to life on their own practically (as long as the dialog is good; which we established in the last blog that it is spot on!). So we wanted to create an art style that is as close to photo-real as possible without being “freaky-looking” real. Well, take a look and I think you’ll agree it doesn’t get much better than the screenshots below.
Now comes the fun part: putting it all together and giving the player the ability to really feel what it’s like to be on the Diagnostics team at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Stay tuned for more details on the gameplay as it develops (quite literally) and I promise even more gameplay images next time as it all comes together.
Jonathan Cooperson
Legacy Interactive has recently announced the upcoming release of House MD for DS and PC, a hilarious medical puzzler based on the politically incorrect television show by the same name. Developer Jonathan Cooperson has been keeping an insightful diary of his progress, and comments on licensed vs original game content in his developer diary. Below is a snippet and some preview screenshots.
House M.D. Developer’s Diary #2 by Jonathan Cooperson
Last we left off, the script was under way and we were in the early phases of working on programming and art on our House, M.D. game. But before I get more into that I want to briefly touch on the middle part of that development
process: The design phase. This is perhaps the most important part of the game—making process as it sets the foundation and scope of the entire game.
So here’s the low down on working with licensed materials: it is completely different from designing an original title and a whole new monster in and of itself. Normally when designing a game with original characters you can hone and craft the story around the gameplay to work how you need it. If you want to have the player jump across a river from rock to rock to get to the cave where they have to search for the new, better weapon to use, you can construct the story to lead that way.
With a licensed game you already have developed characters, an established story format and settings defined for you. This means you must craft the gameplay to fit in that pre-existing world rather than the other way around. This often proves to be far more difficult than you might think. That said, the pros of working with a licensed entity offer great benefits that you can’t get from an original title such as more established characters and settings, instant recognition of the title, and a built-in fan base (and with a built-in fan base of 82 million world-wide, who can complain?).
The real challenge with House was to create fun gameplay but still have it be coherent within the story being presented. I did not want the game to be a series of disjointed mini-games where we say “OK, now complete this Sudoku puzzle and that will give you a clue as to why the patient is dying...” Instead I wanted to have the player feel like they were part of House’s team so we could tell them “OK, the patient may be dying of illness X. Now go perform a Lumbar Puncture, do a complete blood count and search their house for toxins.“ This meant throwing most known mini-game conventions out of the window and designing gameplay based on what needed to be done in each specific case.
For this we utilized the assistance of several design sources; Alchemic Productions (designers on Clive Barker’s Jericho) helped with some overarching ideas of the mini-games involved providing some coherence to all the gameplay.
We then employed the assistance of Phil Campbell (designer of Nancy Drew
Dossier: Lights, Camera, Curses), who helped us refine some of the gameplay and make the interface work better for the unique interactivity of the Nintendo DS.
After putting all this input combined with the experience of Craig Brannon, our Executive Producer, and Genaro Avila, my Assistant Producer, we had a great variety of gameplay at hand that really fit seamlessly into the world of House.
Then came time to find someone to make this idea a reality. This is where Glyphic studios came into the picture. With a strong background in programming for the Nintendo DS, they immediately offered up the possibility for some amazing techniques for integrating the look and feel of the show into a gaming scenario.
We knew we didn’t want the game to look too “cartoony” because that just seemed like a bad match for the license and we didn’t want to blow the whole budget trying to render 3D models of all the characters (not to mention animating them). Animated 3D models can be a pretty strange way to look at characters based on real-life counterparts, also. That was really the key; these characters are already real, established people (well, real-life actors, at least). People know them already so why reinvent them? We ultimately decided to utilize still images, in a similar vein as the majority of casual games on the market, to establish the situations and dialog and the characters will come to life on their own practically (as long as the dialog is good; which we established in the last blog that it is spot on!). So we wanted to create an art style that is as close to photo-real as possible without being “freaky-looking” real. Well, take a look and I think you’ll agree it doesn’t get much better than the screenshots below.
Now comes the fun part: putting it all together and giving the player the ability to really feel what it’s like to be on the Diagnostics team at Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Stay tuned for more details on the gameplay as it develops (quite literally) and I promise even more gameplay images next time as it all comes together.
Jonathan Cooperson