hello games

No Man’s Sky: Why The Delay Is Good

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)

So if you’ve been following No Man’s Sky, and haven’t heard that A) the game was delayed, and B) some people had a meltdown over it, you’ve been living under an extremely insulated rock.

So anyway, the game is delayed.  Though I’d like to address some of the bizarre reactions on it (including death threats to the lead and to a reporter), as I’m focusing on the game I’d like to discuss the delay.  Also there’s only so much I can write “stop it you morons.”

So, NMS delayed.  Good.

Why do I say good?  Because that’s a sign of two things:

  1. That Hello Games knows that there’s more work to be done.
  2. That Hello Games will admit there’s work to be done and do it.

First, as noted earlier, the NMS team seems to be doing everything right to actually make the game work.  Right focus, right methods, etc.  The fact that they can outright say “no, we need more time” means they’re aware enough of what they’re doing to take more time.

Secondly, the fact they will admit this in public, for a game whose hype has become a living thing entirely separate from their own efforts, is a good sign for the final product.  Unless the problems were epic, they probably could have gotten away with a flawed game with a day 0 patch or something.  They didn’t – that speaks to an honest about getting a good product.

The delay tells me NMS is probably going to live up to the (actual, not imagined) hype.  The team can say “stop, wait” as opposed to tossing out a game that – let us be blunt – would probably get a lot of love anyway.

I’m reminded a bit of Starbound, another game that I’m looking forward to (and that sadly, I will have to play through before OR after NMS because its pure crack to me).  The team has taken extra time to work on it, but as of the last beta I played – and I played through the game 3 times Early access – it’s evolved amazingly.  Time can make a better product (ask Blizzard).

The delay may be painful for some of us, but it’s just another sign we’re going to get a good product.

– Steve

No Man’s Sky: It Can Be Done

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)

One of the concerns I see expressed about No Man’s Sky is that a small team of indie developers like Hello Games just couldn’t do this. I disagree, and in fact think it’s quite likely’ll they’ll succeed.

So you know i’m not wasting your time, I base this theory on:

  • My experience in IT (20+ years).
  • My work as a software project manager (12+ years).
  • My interest in development processes (12+ years).
  • My work in procedural generation (most of my life).
  • My experience as a gamer (most of my life).

So let’s look at the reason I think Hello Games is going to pull this off.

A Focused Game

First of all, no matter how “big” No Man’s Sky seems, if you look at it, it’s an extremely focused piece of development:

  • Exploring large procedural spaces – mostly planets.
  • These spaces have procedural features, including life.
  • Mining and finding resources.
  • Dealing with hostile and non-hostile life.
  • Crafting by combining various resources to change equipment.
  • A focused set of equipment for the characters
  • Interaction with species via various actions, trees, and simple fight/aid mechanics.
  • Space travel.
  • Exchanging of good via trade games.
  • Cataloging findings.
  • All of this is done with a chosen aesthetic.

No Man’s Sky, when you look at it, is somewhere between evolutionary and revolutionary. All the parts have been seen before, its the combination of them that stands out to create a universe.

The game design is very focused – Sean Murray and company have deliberately restrained adding new features.   This means that Murray and Team can pay attention to what they want to deliver exactly. Well-defined features allow for focused development, focused testing, and good delivery. If you know what you want to do, you can deliver it a lot easier.

No Man’s Sky is delivering a very focused experience, which allows for focused development. Speaking of . . .

Focused Initial Development

The first developer on No Man’s Sky was Sean Murray himself, who built the core engine, which he eventually expanded to 4 then 13. This is the way you do core initial development.

Small, tight teams – sometimes an individual – are a great way to start a project. One or a few people, working together (often unmanaged) can deliver a prototype with surprising speed because theyre focusing on getting everything together. They’re not trying to market. They’re not trying to make it run on every machine. They’re not even making the most efficient code. They’re ot havign people constantly try and change things. They don’t have to write patches.

They’re making a start. As one guy I worked with called it – “stick smart guys in a room and feed them pizza.”

This is the kind of arrangement that I’d expect would deliver a decent prototype. It may not be perfect – it may only be a prototype that’s eventually discarded. But it lets you get the basics down.

This is exactly how I’d expect a project like this to start – and be successful. It’s a good core foundation.

Agile Development

So you have a focused plan and a core prototype. How do you polish something like this into a game? It’s procedural, it’s going to have a lot of complexities, and it’s not something you plan easily.

The not-so secret is Agile Development. Basically, tight, integrated development where teams have a large list of goals, but focus on small deliverables that are high priority, deliver quick, and focus on interaction and iteration.

Sean Murray’s team uses classic agile processes. They have a morning meeting, set goals, and do a master build in the evening.  This is all happening in roughly the same space from what I’ve seen in videos, increasing interaction.

Really, what Agile does is acknowledge that planning everything out often fails as you find the flaws to your giant plan as soon as you start. So you set goals and meet them in increments, researching them as needed, and cooperating tightly with your co-workers.  Even if you don’t deliver everything, Agile’s focus on “delivering stuff that works” means you usually get enough – or more than enough – done to meet your goals.

In short, the team at Hello Games is using the exact kind of software processes that would lead to success.

Plenty Of Resources

A team of 13 or so people may seem small, but gaming (and indeed any software development) has a number of resources to call upon.

  • There are services out there to do development or provide code. You can outsource pretty easily if needed. Not sure if the team does it, but it’s an option. There’s a lot of games made by a “team” that really involve many outsourced teams.
  • There are a huge amount of libraries, graphic tools, code engines, and more for development teams to use. You can bet that these have been used by the No Man’s Sky team – just like any other development project.  Few pieces of software are created from scratch in their entirely – and you can bet a lot of media resources aren’t.
  • There’s already lots of procedural games and algorithms and theories, from past Roguelikes to the Superformula. There’s a lot of examples to be used or to at least show what is possible.
  • People network.  You can bet the folks behind NMS were asking friends, fellow coders, and other connections for advice.

In short, there’s all the resources out there the team may need to make NMS a reality – resources other games have leveraged.  In fact . . .

Public Accountability

The NMS team, despite the game’s hype, is remarkably modest.  Sean Murray seems affable and humble.  The game is getting played up, but Hello Games isn’t bragging or strutting around.  It’s refreshing.

At the same time, the NMS team has been very clear about the game and game goals and what it does.  Though there’s occasional assumptions by gamers about the game, it’s easy to find the team being very clear on what they’re doing.

They’re being publicly accountable.  They’re saying what the game is – and if they screw up, it’ll be very obvious.

Frankly, I don’t think anyone does something like this and delivers anything less.

The Conclusion

NMS has focused goals, started right, uses the right management techniques, has resource to call on, and Hello Games has been clear on what they’re doing in a way that holds them accountable.

Me, despite some concerns about the game that I’ve stated, I think Hello Games is going to deliver.
– Steve

No Man’s Sky – What’s Next?

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)

As noted due to my interest with No Man’s Sky I’m blogging about it as it fits my interests in computers, media, and of course procedural generation!

I’m looking forward to No Man’s Sky. I expect it to be a hit. I expect it to be huge. I’ve also wondered that after that “huge hitness” what’s next for i?

This is worth asking because if NMS is a hit, what happens afterwards may be a model for other, similar properties. NMS’ broad scope and procedural content make it stand out – but as there’s many procedural games with broad scope out there and/or coming.

Or in short, I assume what happens to NMS may provide a template for future games and concurrent ones.  I want to try and guess now.

Here’s a few things I see:

* GO LONG TERM: It sounds like NMS is going to be around for awhile, and with a galaxy to explore there’s certainly many places to go. We’ve seen long-term games with broad content have endurance (Minecraft, Terraria) and others with similar ambitions (Starbound). NMS is something I can see people playing obsessively, though . . .
* NEEDS MORE: Even hough I’m jazzed for it, I’m not sure the current content set would keep me playing regularly beyond 3-6 months. I think NMS will need to add more content and features over time to maintain interest, else it’ll be for dedicated explorers (which may be the goal).  Dedicated explorers would probably play this for 1-3 years.
* MAY ENTER PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS: NMS has been on Colbert, been in the news, it’s got the kind of buzz that could make it become “A thing” like Minecraft – something everyone hears about and many try. If successful, it will inspire others to try the same thing (much as Minecraft did), and may give it a longer life.  That will also inspire imitators (I imagine at some point procedural games will become comparatively common).  That gives it more life.
* WILL LIKELY GO TO ALL PLATFORMS: If NMS is the big hit that I suspect it is, I think there will be an obvious effort to get it to other platforms (I’m at least sure Microsoft will want it on X-Box, but I think the X_box will become a sealed PC next iteration so it might not be an issue). There’s no reason not to extend it, and I imagine there’s demand.  (The fact Starbound is on X-Box intrigues me)
* HOW FAR CAN IT GO? The limit of NMS is that its own limits work against it. Hard/impossible to find people. No/little building or influence. As big a booster as I am I’m not sure how far NMS will go before it seems that there’s not as much interest. People do like interaction and exploring and pimping out equipment isn’t like building castles.  I also wonder how much they can add on to a game with so much procedurally balanced content.

My prediction on NMS is that it’s got up to 5 years of life in it, but I can’t see it bearing large expansions.

However, an interesting question is how it could not be expanded on, but retrofitted.  With all that code and all that work, it might be better if Hello Games focused on No Man’s Sky II and made it truly long-term.

– Steve