Game Developer's March Issue Showcases Civilization V, Dead Nation Postmortems

Author: by Staff

The March 2011 issue of Game Developer magazine, the sister print publication to Gamasutra and the leading U.S. trade publication for the video game industry, has shipped to print and digital subscribers, and is available from the Game Developer Digital service in both subscription and single-issue formats. The exclusive cover story to this issue focuses on Firaxis Games' work on Sid Meier's Civilization V, the latest incarnation of the wildly popular strategy game series, which introduced a number of notable changes to the established formula, such as a hex-based layout that allowed only one unit per tile. Along with these changes, however, came a number of unforeseen problems. Firaxis' Dennis Shirk details why seemingly minute changes fundamentally changed the way the team approached design: "One unit per tile was perhaps the biggest, most noticeable change. Whereas a player in previous versions would work with large stacks of units, one unit per tile was more about expanding the tactical game to make it more interesting and engaging. While I think we succeeded in this concept, the time commitment to this system needed by our design team was fairly costly, and it had a very real impact on the other core components of the game. An entirely new AI system also had to be created, and while great strides were made, we underestimated the time needed to make such a large system work in a consistent, competitive manner. The reality is that the more we focused on brand-new systems to create a brand-new experience, the more we had to trim systems that players had come to expect from previous versions." A second postmortem covers the PSN twin-stick shooter Dead Nation, the latest title from Super Stardust HD developer Housemarque. As the studio saw the title expand in scope, a number of planned features were left on the cutting room floor, and some elements of the game became a bit too overbearing. The team writes: "In hindsight, our levels should have been smaller in scale. After all, we had a fairly small team for the game we were making, but we still wanted to make a title that would take hours to play through, with lots of replayability. As gameplay changed toward a more tactical direction, and as we increased emphasis on necessitated use of different items and weapons, we realized too late that we should have made the levels shorter and used the saved time to create even more variation and unique gameplay moments within the game. As the amount of content required per level increased exponentially, we decided to outsource some of the level assets." Also in this issue, designer Simon Strange presents a decision making approach for identifying and defining low-risk design changes, and Arcade Berg takes a look at the use of exploding barrels in Epic Games' and People Can Fly's Bulletstorm. In addition, the March issue features our regular columnists and special guests including Seth Gibson, Damian Kastbauer, Dave Cowling, Soren Johnson, Kim Pallister, Steve Theodore, Jesse Harlin, and Matthew Wasteland -- who contribute detailed and important pieces on various areas of game development. Worldwide paper-based subscriptions to Game Developer magazine are currently available at the official magazine website, and the Game Developer Digital version of the issue is also now available, with the site offering six months' and a year's subscriptions, alongside access to back issues and PDF downloads of all issues, all for a reduced price. There is now also an opportunity to buy the digital version of March 2011’s magazine as a single issue.