This is a little animation I did for all the gamers out there for Christmas this year. It’s a few days late…but aye…better late than never.

Mad props to Mafialligator for putting together and giving away such a great chiptune track Another Very 8-Bit Christmas rocks!

Anyways, lemme know what you think. Definitely open to suggestions and criticisms. Hopefully the next one will be much more professional and timely. If you have any requests or ideas, drop me a line in the comments below.

P.S. Major props to anybody who can name all of the characters in it.

P.P.S. Special shouts outs to a few gamers in particular…Robby1051, @videogamegirl, @guysgirl, Rich Rosado (your kindness at E3 inspired this), Raheem/Random/MegaRan (honestly debated putting Megaran in this….maybe next time), and all the kids in my classes this year (Ivonne, Klara, Justin, Jason, Sean, Kyle, Deb, Nina, Andrew, Breaker, Toni, Kareem,etc. .) You guys inspire me to stay on top of my game.

Wowzers. I didn’t expect this from the Kane and Lynch 2 site. From a designer’s perspective, I’m gonna say whoever did this was either very brave or just insane. The use of video is cool, and may end up bringing players in, but I’m not sure if it captures the grity feel of the game. Users on the web may feel that it’s just crappy video (I could be wrong).

They definitely get the point across that they want you to download the demo “NOW” and they want you to preorder “NOW”, and the higher quality video embedded within the menu area itself is smart, as it pulls attention to the nontraditional menu itself, and almost forces the user to use it.

For those that like something a little more conventional, they were clever enough to embed a secondary tree like menu towards the bottom of the site.

I do think it’s kind of “odd” (not bad mind you) that there’s so many clean lines and  geometric based design for a game that’s supposed to be so gritty, but hey, it works. I would have loved to see them play around with digital artifacts and censor bars.

But anyways, it’s got pink. And pink in design is always cool. So there’s your inpsiration.

Kane & Lynch 2 :: Dog Days – KaneAndLynch.com

Social Media and Marketing with Gaming's Victoria Young

I met Victoria Young a little over a year ago in working on the social media and digital campaigns for King of Fighters XII and Muramasa. I was quickly impressed by her ability to create order out of chaos, and soak up information like a sponge. I don’t think there was one conference regarding Social Media in the Los Angeles area that she missed out on, or one article that slid by without her reading it.

I hope that Victoria represents a new type of marketer, especially for the video game industry. One that truly tries to understand her customers, and realizes the power that Social Media wields, and when it’s NOT the best tool to use as well.

Ryan: What was your experience like at Disney Interactive Studios?

Victoria Young: It’s always interesting to work for the Goliaths of the world because you get a lot of insight into how a company that big functions. Disney Interactive has so many components that all fit together like clockwork to put out all the products for each quarter. You get to see the level of attention to detail that Disney has for the branding of its products, the messaging, and quality control. For instance, the shade of blue has to be a specific shade for the front of box of a game or it can’t go to print. The artists, brand managers, and PR people have to really be aware of all branding guidelines and craft all messaging very carefully. They are conservative for a reason and the time and money that goes into each of the products is clear when you see it on the shelf next to some other products.

Ryan: What were some of your responsibilities over at Ignition Entertainment?

Victoria Young: Ignition Entertainment is on the opposite end of the spectrum from Disney Interactive Studios–I really wanted to experience both worlds, huge company and start-up. Since Ignition is a very young company with few employees in the LA offices, everyone does a little bit of everything. While at Disney, everyone has a very specific role, from the moment I started at Ignition, I was immediately thrust into two non-specific, all-encompassing roles in Channel Marketing and Social Media. Social media has been my main focus, which is great because it basically is an integral part to every other department: channel/retail marketing, brand marketing, and PR. I essentially created all of the social media pages for Ignition and promoted them creatively and strategically so that we could find and engage all of the fans that we did have out there.

Ryan: Since you’ve started working at Ignition, what games have you helped to market and promote, digitally?

Victoria Young: My favorite titles thus far have been King of Fighters and Muramasa. I had the most creative freedom while brainstorming and executing for these campaigns. We had great engagement levels with the campaigns we ran for these two games, like King of Fighters Throwdown Thursdays, the Muramasa/Justin.TV livestreaming gameplay event, and our fan art contests. It’s so rewarding and such a blast to see fans enjoying the opportunity to participate and to see their enthusiasm.

Ryan: How much did you dread me calling for our Social Media strategy meetings ?

Victoria Young: I actually assign a special, horrible sounding ringtone for your number so I know when to not pick up my phone. JUST KIDDING! Brainstorms with creative, open-minded people such a yourself are part of what kick start great ideas and make this job so much fun.

Ryan: What digital tactics do you feel are sometimes overlooked, when we (as an industry) start putting together social media strategies and tactics?

Victoria Young: I know a lot of people say this, but a lot of companies and brands forget that the essence of social media is SOCIAL. Some bigger names and brands can get away with being a relatively neutral newstream of events and updates, but most brands need to really inject some personality and life into their campaigns. People want news, yeah that’s great, but at the end of the day if they don’t feel like there is a person behind that Twitter account, they won’t want to engage and interact. Also, I think it is critical that social media strategies tie in directly with long-term brand strategies and goals. Quick campaigns aren’t going to truly help you build value unless you have the goal of creating long-term relationships out of them.

Ryan: What’s your stance on community management and brand management?

Victoria Young: People are very nervous about putting their brands out on social media sometimes, and in a way it is like public speaking or something where you really put yourself out there. But at the end of the day, if you’ve got a great brand, a quality product, and a professional, savvy community manager, there is no fire that can’t be put out. If the manager understands the brand and properly communicates it, you can really get an extremely active and enthusiastic community going. Give the community what they need and want in terms of interaction, content, and creativity…as long as you stick to these basics, your community will thrive.

Ryan: Thank you for your time, Victoria. I can’t wait to see what you work on next.

You can contact Victoria here -> @victoria_young

Happinated was one of the biggest illustrative and animation based flash projects I had taken on in quite some time.And the project itself wouldn’t have been that big of a deal if it wasn’t for a factors. ONE. The timeline for this project was cut DRAMATICALLY shorter than originally scoped. TWO. I had never drawn nor animated in an isometric inspired style.

Something else that ended up taking a little bit more time than expected was the actual character design. We had originally had something a little different in mind in terms of style, but then we realized that once the graphics were shrunken down to a size that would allow the user to actually 1)navigate the game and 2)navigate the site itself, we realized that design cuts were going to have to be made.

If you look at the sketches below, you can see how we went back to emphasize certain characteristics of the character, particularly in the face. The face was going to display several different “statuses” that the gamer was in (“Happinated”, “ok”, and “sad”).For the user to be able to quickly glance and recognize this, we went back and enlarged the Head to a much more disproportionate relation to the body.

What also had to be considered was how this style was going to translate into other characters, and this had to be a “future-proofed” style, in the event that this could get expanded to the point where others could make their own custom character and implant them into the game.

We also needed an art style where we could quickly illustrate people that we found on Twitter, and offer illustrations of them as incentives for them to participate with us online.

As for the process itself, there was actually very little sketching done on paper with pencil. I would have loved to have created a fully hand drawn look and animation, and then retraced it into illustrator and animate it with Flash, but the timeline, budget, and possible future uses of the artwork prohibited that.

It’s surprising just how much you can do when you’re forced to.

Happinated.com Project

This site holds a special place in my heart, as it’s one of the first video game based social media projects I was fortunate enough to work on.  I love the little pre-rendered pieces, and the fact that it declares the reviews as soon as you reach the homepage. I even like the way the flags frame the content centered inside.

One thing I am gonna knock on it is not using the iconic characters on the homepage. The fanbase completely fell in love in Momohime and Kongiku.

But overall, cool site. Let me know if you agree or disagree in the comments below. Or say “Hi” if we talked when the game released.

Muramasa The Demon Blade
Muramasa Wallpapers
Muramasa on Facebook (my old social media baby!)

Justin Donnell is a game developer and entrepreneur with a very unique idea. He wants to combine gaming development and social media in a different way. He’s not looking to build another Farmville, he’s looking to bring all of YOU, the gaming community, into the process with the game developers. It’s a great idea, at the right time, and he’s here to talk about it.

Q: Justin, can you tell us a little about your past gaming experience?A: Odyssey, Atari, NES, SNES, etc, etc, etc, Present Day. Oh you meant development experience. My development experience started with the Unreal Engine. My most notable work being the time I spent programming for a large Transformers project. I spent some time making 2D games in Game Maker and learning it’s scripting language, then eventually made the move to Flash and ActionScript. Somewhere in the midst of that I started Faceplant Games. The original business model involved the development of customized games. The ‘Community Development’ model came later, and I just kept the Faceplant Games name. What can i say, I love that logo. FYI, it was designed by my good friend Scot Gilmore at Rooster 3D.
Q: Can you tell me ANYTHING about your Transformers project? I promise I won’t tell anybody.
A: That project was a prototype demo that we wanted to submit to Hasbro a few years ago. The guy who headed up the project, Vincent M. Donatelli, ran into some severe family trauma and we put it on hold for a while. He’s currently doing his best to bring it back to life. I was the lead programmer on the whole shebang.
Q: How do you like working with the Unreal engine?
A: I love the Unreal Engine, plain and simple. Unreal is where my game development experience began. I started creating custom maps for the original Unreal Tournament, then delved into texture design and 3D modeling, and eventually dove head first into learning UnrealScript. That was actually the first language I ever learned extensively. The Unreal Engine, and all that Epic has provided to game developers, has by far taught me the majority of what I know about development, and has enabled me to get where I am. I can’t forget the great community surrounding Unreal either, I received a lot of help from a lot of people. All though my current focus is not on Unreal, my roots will always lie there. I look forward to taking part in another Unreal project eventually, hopefully finishing the Transformers demo.
Q: Why do you like to insult me so much on Gchat before asking for favors?
A: Because….after crushing your confidence and general feeling of self worth, you’ll do what I ask in the hopes of regaining my affection. LOL j/k. Seriously though, I only joke around with people I like. Let’s not get too mushy though, it will scare away the hardcore gamers.
Q: I noticed that you have Actionscript listed as a skillset. How do you use that in the development process?
A: ActionScript being the scripting language used in Flash, I use it extensively while developing web based games.
Q: Now just what is Faceplant Games’ approach to game development?
A: We’re offering a community driven game development platform. It allows game developers to interact and collaborate with the gaming community during the development of their games. They can create their own pages within our site to showcase their team and their games throughout the development process. We provide them with many tools for interacting with the community. This allows developers to find out exactly what gamers want, what they like, don’t like, etc.

It also allows gamers to take part in the development process from start to finish. They can play games currently in production, collaborate with developers, give their feedback, and even submit their own game ideas. Each game idea gets it’s own page as well.

If you’d like to see it in action, check out the videos on the “How it Works” page – http://faceplantgames.com/gamedev/?page_id=2

The site is deeply integrated with Google Friend Connect and makes use of many fantastic tools such as Google Wave. There’s also plans to integrate features of Google Buzz into the site.

As of this writing, the new site has only been live for just over a week.
Q: How did you come up with this idea?
A: I was standing on the toilet trying to hang a clock when I slipped and hit my head on the sink. No wait, that’s how I came up with the idea for the Flux Capacitor. (Not only is that a bad joke, but it shows my age.)

Actually I was sitting in my mechanic’s waiting room reading “How Successful People Think” by John C. Maxwell. That really is the truth this time. I had been trying to come up with a business idea that incorporated both gaming and social media. Then it just popped in there. What just popped in there Ray? (sorry, couldn’t resist). Actually the idea came in part from my past experience. I had always involved outside people in the development of my games, at least in small ways. A great example being the “First Impressions” feature offered by Flash Game License. On a very small scale, I had always been practicing “Community Driven Game Development”.

The eureka moment was the idea to expand on some of the approaches I already used, deploy them on a much larger scale, and make the whole thing a very open system that provided a very social experience. After a lot of brainstorming, building a site, re-brainstorming, and re-building an entirely new site, Faceplant Games is where you see it now.
Q: Tell me about Faceplant Games’ charitable efforts.
A: Simple, we give 25% of our revenue to various charities. How do we choose those charities? We let our users create Charity pages, similar to the Game Idea pages. If you have a charity your passionate about, you can submit some information about it, and a page is created. We choose a different charity every month or so, usually based on user popularity, and give 25% to them until we move onto the next charity. So gamers and developers can help us give back while doing what they love.
Q: Implementing social media and crowdsourcing is a pretty interesting idea to introduce into game deveopment. Have you seen this done anywhere else?
A: I thought that FPG was the first to take this type of approach. However, shortly after the release of the first website, I came across “The Zombie Game Experiment” from Hive Media. They we’re utilizing a very similar approach. At the time, FPG was focusing on web based casual games, and Hive Media was doing a large scale 3D game. It was Hive Media’s approach to charity that ultimately inspired FPG’s philanthropy.

Since then though, FPG’s structure has changed quite a bit. Most significantly is the fact that we offer the service to all developers now, the deep integration with Google Friend Connect, user created pages, and the use of tools like Google Wave. I’ve not found any sites, game related or otherwise, matching our current setup. Send me links if you find some.
Q: How has Google Friend Connect affected your strategy and/or ideas in regards to Faceplant Games?
A: I wouldn’t say GFC has affected my strategy as much as it has ENABLED my strategy. I knew what I wanted the site to be, and GFC provided the means to accomplish it. It provided the perfect social infrastructure. It’s open and distributed approach gives FPG a far greater reach across the web than an in-house solution could have done. Don’t discount the importance of tools like Google Wave though. GFC provides the social aspect, but Wave is the powerhouse for collaboration.
Q: Do you have any plans to develop any games with Google Friend Connect integration, or wrapped around the way GFC works?
A: You never know. . .
Q: Who (from Google) would you like to see in the Faceplant Games community?
A: I’m not sure I would, or could, pick any one person from Google. It would be nice to see some of the GFC and Wave developers. If I’m setting my sights high though, why not shoot for the top. If I can just get the next Lego game showcased on the site, maybe Larry and Sergey will drop by.
Q: Where do you see Faceplant games going in the future?
A: I see it becoming a thriving social community. A place where developers and gamers can collaborate, resulting in some outstanding games being produced. I see the site growing and expanding, with new features being added frequently. I also hope the site can serve as an example of what is possible when utilizing an open and distributed social infrastructure.

Thank you so much for you time, Justin. And for insulting me on a regular basis.

So what do you all think about the idea behind Faceplant Games? Do you think it will work? Do you like the integration and use of social media to assist in game development and design? Comment below!

I could go on and on on how the whole marketing campaign for Red Dead Redemption has been amazing (and I will at another time ), but this is just a look at their site.

Even from the age verification page, you’ll see that this site carries a consistent theme and art direction that flows with the game. It loads quickly, the art/graphics are beautiful, the typography is on point, everything is extremely easy to find…I LOVE IT.  Great job.
Red Dead Redemption