Game Design Zen

Sometimes my wife surprises me. Like, last year, when my friend from California told me he was going to be really busy, “I won’t have time to work on the art for a while.” We were just weeks away from finishing The Gratitude Habit, when our artist backed out. Months of effort had gone into the stories and the software, but it didn’t work without art.

So, I considered finding a local artist – maybe at one of those 2-year art schools. Or maybe I could hire someone from DeviantArt. I mean, clip-art would be fine, we didn’t need Picasso.

So, as I sat in my closet, rocking back-and-forth, chewing my fingers off, my wife walked up behind me and put her hand on my shoulder. She surprised me by saying, “I’ll do it.”

Perplexed, I said, “What? You … I didn’t know you could draw.”

“I can’t!”, she replied, “But we can’t wait forever and we can’t afford an artist. I’ll do it.”

In 21 years, I’d never seen my wife draw; not even a doodle! But, she’d always been a good student: meticulous and persistent. I began to get excited.

And, she dove right in; head first! Each day, she’d draw several new images. It was slow of course. But, we found some help in books like, Understanding Comics, and after a week or so, she found her rhythm. She created art, like this:

She was doing it! Sure, it wasn’t Picasso, but it conveyed the message: Gigi was taking his briefcase to the office. It was a small success and it motivated her to keep going. Course, we needed dozens and dozens of images, but, it was a start.

And remember my friend from California? Well, he didn’t have time to draw for us, but he gave my wife lots of good advice, like “Always use reference art. Find an image on the internet and use it as a guide.” That was a huge breakthrough for her. With her iPad in one hand, and her pen in the other, her images began to look like this:

A drastic improvement. And, good enough to ship! 5-weeks later, after much blood, sweat, and tears, we shipped The Gratitude Habit! My wife had done it!

But, her journey wasn’t over yet. Cause the ink was barely dry, when we started work on Episode 2! This time around, Gigi had stories from his marriage. We needed images of people – lots of them.

I remember when I was growing up, I wasn’t that great a student. Often times, in class, I used to doodle on my notebook. Of course, I only did the simple stuff: lightning bolts and swirlies. You can’t mess up a swirlie. But, humans were an entirely different subject! Eyeballs and lips and hair? Windows of the soul? Impossible!

And nothing has changed since I was a kid. People are hard to draw. Whether it’s me, or my wife. Her early images looked like this:

Proportions were the hardest. They infuriated my wife; almost to tears sometimes. She tried a lot of styles and struggled to find one she could get right. But, she kept at it, and eventually, we settled for this herpy-derpy couple when we shipped Good Sex, Great Marriage.

Definitely no Picasso. And that’s about the time she found, ‘Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain‘. And soon after that, we put together a holiday episode, ‘Christmas Gratitude‘. We put it together quite quickly, and my wife drew images like this!

 

Compared to her earlier briefcases? Just … WOW! Each new episode, she’d jump back in and practice, practice, practice.

Of course, Christmas trees are easier than people. And as I write this, we’re neck deep into episode 4: ‘The Compliment Habit’. This time, Gigi tells stories that involve people! Lots of people.

But my wife is not afraid. She’s tackling people head on (pun intended). I think she is surprising herself. She is certainly surprising me. I guess all this practice is paying off, because she is discovering a style of her own. A simple sort of elegance that conveys emotion.

For Episode 4, we need to show the two of us at dinner, happily in love. Last night, she drew this:

My wife took a risk! She offered to do what she had never done before, knowing full well it would be seen by everyone! But, she practiced, deliberately, for thirty minutes a day. She persisted through failures and frustration. And in just ten months, she’s gone from “I can’t draw”, to … a professional artist, who’s work is seen by tens of thousands of people.

Deliberate practice is rarely this easy to see. The evolution is right there, for all to see! My wife couldn’t draw. Now she can.

Do you remember Roger Ebert? He’s that jovial father figure from the Siskel and Ebert movie critic show. I must have watched a gazillion of his reviews. But sometimes, Mr Ebert talks about stuff other than movies. For instance, a few years ago, he wrote an article called, ‘Video Games Can Never Be Art.’

It was a pretty bold piece, but I admire Mr Ebert a lot, so to be honest, I never really gave it much thought. Until  recently, when I had an experience that I will never forget.

It all started while I was browsing the internet. I came across an article about a game I had recently played. The designer of the game was talking about one of the features he had added to his game. Apparently, he had done something new and unique with his non-player characters (NPC) – you know, those animated figures in a game – the ones that are not controlled by you.

Well, that’s when I realized, I had missed this feature entirely! I had played the game, beginning to end, and never even realized there was something deeper going on!

So, that night, I went home, and fired up the game. Only this time, I played it differently. As soon as I could, I ran up to the first NPC I could find and then … I began to talk to it! Well, talk is a bit of a stretch. There were no words involved, just chirps, and jumps, and twirls.

And you know what? The NPC began to talk back! It turns out, it wasn’t a NON-player character after all! It was a PLAYER character – another physical human being – somewhere in the world. And, he was communicating back to me!

I called out to my son, and he sat down and watched me play as I chirped and jumped, trying to get that other character to follow me around. And, surprisingly, the other character did the same. When he got too far away, I sang loudly, asking him to wait, and sometimes, I chirped quickly, when I wanted to show him something. One time, he showed me a secret, and I thanked him by dancing in swirls around his head, and another time, we just barely escaped from danger, and we sang in celebration.

By now, my son and wife and daughter were all watching me play, engrossed in what was happening. And, pretty soon, I realized that we were approaching the end of the game. And, that’s when a sadness overcame me. I had grown fond of this stranger. Somehow, with neither words, nor language, he had become my friend. He had guided me through danger and we had both danced for joy.

And soon, this person would be gone and I would never see them again. And, as we approached the final moments of the game, we both began to hesitate. He slowed, and I slowed, and we began to communicate furiously. We sang goodbye and danced and danced and danced. Until, at last, with nothing else to say, we walked slowly, side-by-side, into the end.

And, as the credits rolled, I realized, I was sad and I was joyous, both. And, when I set down the controller, I was surprised at how much emotion this simple game had evoked. Playing it again, going deeper into the mechanics, had helped me discovered a bit of joy and wonder about my fellow man, a stranger I will never see again. And for a long time afterwards, my son, my wife, my daughter, and I, well, we talked about it.

To be sure, my story is a small one, a simple experience I had while playing a game with my family. But, now, I can’t help but believe that perhaps Mr Ebert was a bit hasty with his words. For on that night, I played a video game that took me on an emotional Journey – it caused me to reflect upon the meaning of life. And that qualifies as Art to me.

It was the main story in Sunday’s business section. It begins:

It’s dark outside and you can’t find your flashlight?

There’s an app for that.

Have an unexplainable need to know the name of the last Mila Kunis movie?

There’s an app for that.

The moment that Curtiss Murphy realized life was good even as his seriously ill daughter cycled in and out of the intensive care unit?

There’s an app for that, too – and Murphy, a computer scientist from Virginia Beach, developed it.

…  (Read the Full Article)

I couldn’t finish my sentence. I was reading aloud, to my family – sharing a review for the Gratitude Habit. But, my voice cracked. Emotion overwhelmed me and I began to cry.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. They were tears of happiness.

This has been the best New Year ever! For starters, the world didn’t end. In fact, the weather has been lovely and the feedback for the Gratitude Habit has been amazing. And I have a new assignment at work that thrills me – I get to train medical students! Fantastic!

Plus! I scored a goal this evening, in the first play-off match. And on Saturday, I get to don my coaching shoes, once again. And most importantly, I am grateful for my family. This past Christmas was rough, but now my daughter is healthy, once more. My son is still a remarkable young man and my wife … well, after 21 years, she’s still the love of my life and my best friend.

I have so much to be grateful for! So, I wrote this post as a reminder – to myself. Something I can read, months from now, when maybe the winds have changed and things are going south. So that, when the weight of the world is on my shoulders, I can look back and be reminded of the wonder and joy I have experienced in life. This is a moment worth savoring.