Ueda way of concept.

Solo espero que Sony pueda otorgarles medios para que no tarde mas de 4 años en salir la nueva obra de Ueda (2009~2010 si contamos desde SOTC), aunque estoy dispuesto a esperar lo que haga falta si la calidad y esencia se mantienen.

Transcript.

[Transcript of slides]

1............................................................................
Game Design Methods of ICO
Fumito Ueda
Director/Game Designer/Lead artist
Kenji Kaido
Producer/Product Manager

2............................................................................
(humans)

3............................................................................
Emotional Reality != Photo-Realistic Reality
What kind of "reality" can generate emotional involvement, or "empathy"
Our target is "immersion", a reality you feel inside your dream

4............................................................................
Genesis of ICO
Feb, 1997
Fumito Ueda wanted to create a game with totally new concept
Universal theme ~ "Boy meets girl" situation should work...
-A young boy and a slightly elder girl
-"Holding her hand" ~ physical to mental "Bond"
... well balanced visual combination, with a slightest twist from a standard format
->Sharing the vision of the game with the team
->Starting up the creation or pilot movie

5............................................................................
Pilot movie (CG)
June, 1997
Early Concepts:

-A servant boy and a confined girl in a castle
-Escape ~ adventure
--Escapade in the town
--Survival in deserted island
--Destroying the castle at the end?

-Fancier combat scenes - more video game like

-Horns are on the girl, not the boy - (wearing horned helmet + cursed tattoo)

SLG [simulation game] + ADV [adventure game] focussing onto communications with NPCs

6............................................................................
Planning ~ Prototyping
Sept, 1997

Project started as an adventure game for PS1
Kenji Kaido joined here, Ueda&Kaido two-men project

Two missions at this stage
1) Making the concept into down-to-earth design
Concept works, Macro game design
2) Establishing a production team
New team with more staff

7............................................................................
Product concept of ICO

1) Differentiation / Differentiation
Pursuing complete differentiation from oter titles to "stand out" in the market
>Making a different approach from others

2) Artistic approached graphics / artist graphics
Just 3D was no longer innovative, thus trying to create a game with which screens themselves can de an "art"
>Visual presentation was the key to the game design

3) New level of "Reality" / "Reality"
reality = empty, solid
!= photo realism
A) "Universe within monitor"
-which can arouse emotion of players
-solidness, immersion, emotional experiences
B) Vivid heroine
-you want to look/act good in front of her, aside from the game task

8............................................................................
Ueda's Judgment
Approach how to realize
Differentiation, Artistic graphics, and a new level of reality
(later, this approach will be systemizd as "subtracting design" method)
=> Make the game as "simple" as possible
=> Reduce the volume, Increase the quality and density
>pin-point splendor-ness
>detailed drawing to generate true "reality"
>This itself can be a new entertainment, if you can freely move around and interact with realistic environment (remember, this is a story of 1997)

9............................................................................
Game volume and Quality
[graph comparing "Average game" to "Approach of ICO", the latter have less "game volume" of higher "Quality"]
Same cost (area), but more protruding design
Higher detail and quality within limited volume ~
Maverick (or, "behind the eight ball" type) approach

10...........................................................................
Shaping up the game volume

A castle, a town which surrounds it, deep forest, deserted island , etc...
=> Game ends when escaped outside to the castle
Wide varieties of characters with their physical/mental growth
=> A boy, a girl, enemy soldiers, with no level-ups
==> Minimal design

Assembling the production team
To achieve the goal of beign different, staff outside the conventional game project were gathered intentionally

Actual project started from Nov, 1997
2 programmers, 4 artists, 1 designer + Ueda and Kaido

11...........................................................................
Sept, 1999

Two years have passed, but the goal is still out-of-sight
-Characters are moving, but not with enough reality we aimed
--Difficulty controlling character motions / AI
-Too ambitious for PS1? Lack of CPU power
-Too many parameters to control - caused program instability

Three choices:
1) Termination of the project
2) Changing the concept, seeking the way to finish the project
3) Taking more time, staying with the original concept (we knew we can reach there eventually, but...)

12...........................................................................
EmotionEngine
October, 1999
Turning Point #2 - Playstation 2
Changin platform from PS1 to PS2
Converted the program to new hardware to solve the problems
With original concept, no compromise

Problem solving
New hardware did solve almost all CPU related problems
Hiring programmer with better understanding toward visual importance
We neede a programmer who can understand and contribute to the concept of how to generate reality of our goal
ex.) a girl climbing onto a box

13...........................................................................
Raising "reality", while cutting the production cost

1) Higher quality and detail
> reducing the number of elements to work on
> concentrating on those which selected

2) Maintaining reality or immersion
The more elements in the game, the harder to maintain reality
(one unnecessary, unnatural item on screen can totally destroy the overall atmosphere carefull created)
>reducing elements which generates unreality
ex.) story, scripts, characters, items
>reducing elements which take players away from immersion
ex.) health gauge, inventory screen, BGM
ex.) stationary civilians in a village, in typical RPG

14...........................................................................
Summarizing our method taken
"Subtracting Design"
Actively reducing/removing the number of elements included, to improve an overall quality of the game
-Much higher density is necessary
-Risky method, you need courage to take this
-Of course, this will not work for all the projects

15...........................................................................
Direction of ICO game design
We put highest priority in "increasing reality" and "reducing unreality" throughout the game. We believe the emotions this game generate inside players are realized by designing all the elements aiming the same ultimate objective.
More "immersion
<==Every single element in the game are designed to recreate better "reality"
<=STORY; Character design; Animation and visual; sound design; Game system; Level design (puzzles); Interface design

16...........................................................................
Gold Master ~ Launch
<Wrap-Up>

-4 years of production, with lots of trials and errors

-Yet, the original concept remains almost unchanged
--believe in the original concept, believe with faith
--having the vision of final product, which rarely altered
--creating concept movies on regular basis, which not only worked as presentation film, but as the reference for inside/outside the team to share the concept

-And we achieved almost all what we intended...

-Followed by unexpectedly high evaluation from the market
--we are so happy to be acknowledged, even after taking this unconventional approach

¿Vale la pena aferrarse a las ideas iniciales y por lo tanto prolongar el desarrollo de un videojuego para que la calidad y la originalidad hagan acto de presencia? En mi opinion en ciertos casos sí, en otros no, depende del tipo de juego y de las metas técnicas necesarias para transmitir al jugador lo que se ideo en la cuna del mismo.