David Hellman

This Blog Is Moving!

2008-03-11T10:39:00.000-07:00

Please proceed to www.davidhellman.net/blog/. All content has been duplicated there! This blog is going to go away soon.

Who's Reading My Mind, Part I

2008-03-05T23:20:00.001-08:00

NOTE: This blog has moved to www.davidhellman.net/blog/. This post and all other content has been duplicated there! Commenting on this blog has been disabled.

Today I bring you another new feature, Who's Reading My Mind, in which I scramble to take credit for an idea I've recently learned someone else plans to implement. Word just hit the street that Wayforward Technologies, maker of Contra 4 and Shantae, is developing a Wii Ware game called LIT. According to the press release, it's a 3D horror puzzler about maneuvering a scary, dark environment by creating safe paths with light. That's right, you light the way to presumably stave off whatever horrors lurk in the 3D darkness.

Well! Dudes, I had the same idea back in 2003. Here are some hastily-snapped photos from an old sketchbook.

In my version, each stage was a grid-based dungeon, like from the first Zelda game. The starting room was lit, but the surrounding rooms were dark. There was a mechanism for extending the light from one room to another. Rooms had different qualities: some allowed light to travel through them to the next room in a continuous line; other rooms always redirected the light in a particular direction; other rooms had dials that could be turned to send the light in whatever direction you wanted. So, although it was partly an action game where you'd control a man running around through a series of rooms, performing local actions and physically manipulating his surroundings, it was also a puzzle game in which an entire stage was a tile-based puzzle. The local-scale action was about uncovering all the tiles in the puzzle through exploration -- bombing walls or what have you. It was about assembling the big picture from piecemeal observation. On the higher level, it was a puzzle about sending a signal through a series of redirecting nodes, and the chain reactions that would result from changing the flow somewhere early in the sequence.

Atmospherically, it was horror. The dark rooms were frightening; you'd feel vulnerable there. You'd do everything possible not to go there. There were things living in the darkness, and they could move around freely, with much greater perception and agility than you had. You'd hear them coming, getting louder, long before they'd appear on screen in the top-down perspective. But figure out how to turn the lights on, and you'd transform terrifying rooms into places of comfort. The light rooms were as soothing as the dark rooms were unnerving. But you could could play it how you liked, to some extent, braving the darkness if you were quick enough to evade the monsters, or spending more time on the puzzle aspect to get the lights on and avoid danger. I wanted it to have a real feeling of vulnerability, so you'd think hard to avoid going into dark rooms.

At the end of each stage you'd go down a floor, bringing the light deeper underground. The rooms you lit formed a tenuous strand of illumination and safety in a vast, pitch black underground maze.

At this point, Wayforward have only released one sketch of a weird hair-like creature, leaving many questions unanswered. Will they use a room-by-room approach like my concept, or will the light puzzle be more local (e.g. using flashlights and candles to create paths within an otherwise dark room)? Will it be as awesome as my game would have been if it existed, or only a shabby pretender next to the immaculate precision of my idleness?

Braid Gameplay Videos

2008-03-05T16:53:00.000-08:00

NOTE: This blog has moved to www.davidhellman.net/blog/. This post and all other content has been duplicated there! Commenting on this blog has been disabled.

Those great guys at Game Videos have uploaded a couple clips of Braid! Special thanks to Matt Chandronait!

The Art of Braid, Part I: Early Abstracts

2008-03-03T23:20:00.000-08:00

NOTE: This blog has moved to www.davidhellman.net/blog/. This post and all other content has been duplicated there! Commenting on this blog has been disabled.

Over the next month or so I'll be wrapping up work on Braid, a video game by Jonathan Blow, coming to XBOX LIVE Arcade. (For an overview from my perspective, here's the relevant page from my portfolio, and for general Braid-related news, here's the official blog.) It seemed like a good time to "start talkin'," as they say in interrogations. This is the first of a series of blog posts highlighting different aspects of Braid's art, and explaining some of my thoughts behind them. Some posts may be fairly concrete-minded, but others (this one, at least) verge a little into my own associations and difficult-to-pin-down feelings. But hey, it's art! Behind-the-scenes info and creator commentary are always interesting to me, so hopefully these will address someone's curiosity at least.

(Certainly I welcome comments! Let me know what you'd like to hear about, and how I can make these features more interesting.)

Let's start with these vague yet vivid digital paintings. They're from the very beginning of my involvement in the project, in the summer of 2006. Even then it was known that Braid contained various worlds, and that each world had a different theme, and that each theme would call for a different graphic solution. These exercises were just an initial foray into mood and color, to see what range of sensations might be appropriate.

Looking at these now, I don't remember what thoughts were guiding me. But I'm struck by the sense of nature in each one. They're dewy and bright and cold, like a morning when you're out in some wilderness without a jacket because you forgot how chilly it would be. They're also brooding and mutable, unresolved. There's that one with the grey-purple clouds cruising by huddled orange trees. The clouds are like gangbangers scoping out a joint. In all of these, nature is powerful, uncontained, and transient. Looking at these, you don't expect them to stay the same.

Again, I don't remember too well what I was thinking at the time. Maybe they were just reflective of my mood that day, but let's credit my professionalism and suppose I was making an effort to answer the needs of my client! Looking at these in light of the final product, I can see how they relate. ... Backing up a bit, Braid is a series of thought-experiments about how reality might be. Each world the player visits presents a different theory of nature, and time. As the philosophically-inclined Tim, it's the player's role to engage the new theory, test it, and discover its implications. Each new theory brings mystery and discovery, but also destabilizes Tim by deepening his uncertainty, cutting him loose from the grounding of a consistent world view. In Braid, like these paintings, reality is malleable. The forces of nature are powerful and sometimes daunting, but they transform with Tim's evolving perspective. So, I see those things in these images: reinvention, power, and instability.

If you see a pony and a bunny rabbit, please let me know.

Returning to the title screen at the top of this post, that expressionistic element has clearly found its place in Braid. There's more I could say on these themes in relation to the title screen, but maybe I will save that for a future post...

First Post of the Future

2008-03-03T02:15:00.000-08:00

At 2:17am, with the first traces of tendonitis teasing my wrists, triumphantly I post. At last my portfolio site is updated. At last it includes Braid, my nearly-complete project of the last 18 months. With Braid winding down, and GDC last month getting me back in touch with certain people, and thoughts generally turning towards the future, it seems like a great time to get my act together with respect to blogging. So that's it, that's all I've got this time – a businesslike acknowledgement before rushing out the door again. But I'll be back, most likely with some behind-the-scenes on Braid's art (as I claw towards blogging Relevance).

JHU Lecture

2007-06-11T12:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a talk I gave to Tom Chalkley's class at Johns Hopkins University about A Lesson Is Learned on April 15, 2007.

I'M WORKING ON A VIDEOGAME: "BRAID"

2006-12-12T00:57:00.000-08:00

(Screenshot shows work in progress.)

Where have I been in recent months? Working on a video game! From the official web site:

Braid is an action-puzzle game about manipulating the flow of time. The player journeys through a series of worlds; in each world, time behaves differently. The game provides a mind-expanding experience that is filler-free, treating the player's time as precious.

My contribution is all of the world art, all the locations you'll visit. (Character art is coming from Edmund Mcmillen.) I really think people who liked A Lesson Is Learned will be into this. It's playful, unconventional, and philosophical.

Braid won the Innovation Award at the Independent Games Festival this year. It's also a finalist in the 2007 Slamdance Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition.

In development at Number None in San Francisco, Braid is penciled in for a first quarter 2007 release for Windows. Please check back, or join my mailing list, for more details as they emerge!

DAILY FORBODING ROCK FORMATIONS

2006-10-06T00:56:00.000-07:00

This was a concept for "Labyrinth Isle," the everlasting "next" episode of A Lesson Is Learned.

END BOW RESULTANT, RETREAT AN INSTANT

2006-09-30T00:54:00.000-07:00

Rim spangle car leisure. Rum sing graft measure span. Glad horror master plan; deposit.

KARL PILKINGTON WITH TESTICLEARS

2006-09-25T00:53:00.000-07:00

Karl Pilkington of the Ricky Gervais Show podcast requested a couple of anatomical modifications, for safety and convenience. (Listen to Series Three, Episode Five for the lowdown.)

DAILY EXPRESSION OF UNEASE

2006-09-20T00:53:00.000-07:00

I drew this a while ago...

WAS THERE A BURGLARY?

2006-09-20T00:52:00.000-07:00

Stepping lightly, slipping slightly, terrorible snow.

IT'S A DUCK READING A NEWSPAPER

2006-09-18T00:50:00.000-07:00

I've been pretty busy, but I always try to make time to draw a duck reading a newspaper, as you can see.

FORWARD-THINKING MOTORIST INVENTS MAGICAL HOVERCRAFT

2006-09-17T00:50:00.000-07:00

I believe it is controlled by simply displacing one's weight in the desired direction.

READERS EVINCE SULLEN SOLIDARITY

2006-09-16T00:48:00.000-07:00

In response to yesterday's sketch of a man wracked with existential turmoil, Dan Scannel of Penn State writes:

Hello David-

You have descended into a good sulk, and gradually you grow covetous of it, and every potential interaction with someone not sulking is viewed with paranoia. I know this feeling well. It is amplified by the irritability that follows a pot of coffee.

I recently sat on a bench on campus here at Penn State and was indulging a good sulk when someone I know happened upon me and wrenched me out of my reverie and confused and annoyed me.

-dan

Great letter, Dan!

MY SULLENNESS SHALL NOT BE TRIVIALIZED

2006-09-15T00:47:00.000-07:00

Does this happen to anyone? E-mail me!

BEHOLD YOUR NEW LEADER

2006-09-14T00:43:00.000-07:00

"He said what he meant." Behold one dude's propitious ascent to the major stations of his savored nation. Repentant and resplendent, he was always a gent.

DAILY HALLMARK ILLUSTRATION WITH GRADIENT

2006-09-13T00:40:00.000-07:00

Sad to see you go.

SECOND DAILY SKETCH BEGINS TO JUSTIFY "DAILY" QUALIFIER

2006-09-12T00:38:00.000-07:00

A moment familiar to many of us.

INAUGURAL DAILY SKETCH

2006-09-11T00:35:00.000-07:00

To keep my brain active as I recede into silvery retirement, I'm going to post a sketch every day. I won't spend much time on these, just keep 'em coming! We'll see where it goes...

CUTE DOG SPARKS DISCORD FOR DOUR MEN

2006-07-25T00:27:00.000-07:00

Today brings another adorable creature requiring Flash of its adopters. This one you can actually play with!

"FAVORITE" ANIMATION PUPPETS (160k)

This idea originated from playing video games with friends and finding the expressions and movements of the characters often more entertaining than the game's prescribed goal. My desire to win was frequently overrun by the temptation of doing something funny. It made me wish there were more ways to express myself within the game, and some motivation besides conquest.

My first experiment was a simple realization of the concept "digital puppet." Using Flash, I drew an old man whose eyebrows and pupils could move independently. Different combinations of brow and pupil positions seemed to evoke different emotions, from pity to whimsy to rage. But the face didn't do much on its own. It just stared out of the screen. I added another character with the same behaviors, but surprisingly, together they looked even more idle. I added a little yellow dog – and immediately the scene gained focus. It's about the dog, who is either a treasure or a nuisance, and the mens' reactions to it. The dog can be in one lap or the other, but never in between. Therefore the scene is always unbalanced, and never resolved. It's still only a modest demonstration, but I like the direction.

WEB CARTOONISTS' CHOICE AWARDS 2006

2006-07-17T09:10:00.000-07:00

This year A Lesson Is Learned took home three awards from the WCCA! Thanks everybody!

WELCOME SECRETARY OF STATE

2006-07-03T23:58:00.000-07:00

In celebration of Donald Rumsfeld's lunch, please accept this Supercilious Man.

ATHLETICALLY DISINCLINED DINOSAUR ANIMATION

2006-06-27T23:10:00.000-07:00

This little fella requires Flash to view, but those ready for the responsibility and emotional investment will find a friend for life. Just don't expect any cute tricks.

DINOSAUR w/ BALL ANIMATION (124k)

WELCOME INTERNET DENIZENS

2006-06-23T23:07:00.000-07:00

In celebration of the site's launch, please accept this Inspirational Bee.