Salut les amis (time for some French rudiments!),

Hope this blog finds you good and well.

We've been through AI and physics recently, let's talk about visuals now. Cos hey, a game is just like this girl/boy you fall for, what strikes you first is the visual appeal (I know this one is risky but let's live dangerously). Another difficulty of making a great PES game resides in graphics and animations as they have to be spectacular, immersive and yet more real than reality. This is football, a technically beautiful game, PES must represent this.

Some animations are pretty straight forward. Walking, strafing, running, sprinting, these are relatively easy ones to model and implement. When it comes to shots, headers, volleys, dribbling and such like, you're dealing with a wider range of possibilities and representations.
Depending on player skills and play situations, we have to anticipate the range of potential actions that players can perform and have them all in memory ready to happen in the game! Of course animation selection is AI assisted but what I'd like to insist on here is the artistic work done beforehand. First of all, artists have to list all possible animations together with the game-designer and producer, and then model and time those. It's one hell of a workload with great quality expectations for the results.  

Animations which are the most important in my mind are 'inertia related' as I call them. They are the ones actually giving realism and a true to football feel to the game. If a player has just run twenty meters sprinting and you ask for a 180° u-turn, there MUST be a latency in the animation, as a result of kinetics and inertia principles. This is pure physics. There is a small timeframe when the player will change balance, upper body attracted towards running direction, legs still stuck to the ground, a fraction of a second of immobility before the player can start running the other way.

Those inertia related animations are core in every transition (preparation of a shot, change of direction, change of running speed, effects of a crunching tackle,  keeper's diving ...), they are key to making it look and feel like you are seeing actual football player behaviour and physics.

And guess how we studied all this? Yep, with some studio members, running 30 meters at full speed in the studio and changing direction. Taped, cut in frames and then analysed by artists together with some PES material, this is a very good method we used to understand the laws of physics impacting your own moves!
We?ve been simulating some shots and volleys with a tennis ball (windows are ok but a piece of the ceiling fell down), some u-turns and 90° turns (with ball), but no tackling or bicycle kicks: didn't want anyone to get hurt, we need all fingers on keyboards and eyes on screen. We became pretty good at 'office football' though.

And back to work!
Release is coming closer ...

Axel

Headaches. Working on AI triggers heavy headaches. Sometimes I wonder how my programmers can survive AI coding. Ball physics is something complex, but at least it relies on truly scientific physics; with AI it's a new world developers have to imagine. And believe me their intelligence has nothing with an artificial one, it's all human and very powerful, supported by algorithms and so called 'state machines' most of us would never understand. 

The thing about AI is either that it works as a whole system or doesn't work at all. 
In order to build AI for a football game, you've got to like football and 'know' football. Simply reading books about tactics and best play systems (there are some people defending 1-2-7 as the best formation, but this was in the early 1900's :-)) is not sufficient to get the essence of the game.
 
Two years ago I called my former football coach (I had been playing for 10 years in a club), a guy who I have always admired for his capacity to share what's 'smart' about football, why football is the most popular sport in the world and yet as sophisticated as an 'art' (quoting him). I was not technically gifted, so my coach thought he'd better try and make me understand the science of positioning, of playmaking, of dealing with facts of play and typical situations, adapting to my partners' skills and to my opponents' strategy, reacting in real time in the smartest possible way. A whole and crazily complicated system that still leaves room for unexpected and creative things, that's the beauty of football.

We went back to this man in 2008 and 2009, with some key members of the programming and design team, and we literally took some lessons about tactics and playmaking. Then we translated all this in terms of coding, created some 'rules', 'state machines', some individual skills for players and consciousness integrated into a collective system, the team as a whole and so much more ...

I tell you, some days it can truly make you mad when you're testing AI and it shows weird behaviours. Sometimes it's very fun (a player never recovering from a tackle and lying down in the keeper's box for all eternity :-)), sometimes very frustrating. AI is the most difficult part when developing a football game, that's for sure. You need all your energy, and you need a very very good way to let out the pressure when things don't go your way. I sometimes leave the office and go for an hour of squash in order to get better. I usually come back in way better shape. Which is not always the case for my racquets ...

Hope you enjoyed folks, gotta get back to work, stay tuned!
Axel

Hi all,

Hope you're good and well. Today, let's go a little deeper into production and focus on camera management.

Camera is not only a matter of focus, of distance, of visibility, but also a core feature in terms of dynamic gameplay and realism. You can kill the rhythm of a game with bad camera management; especially with sports games. We are all used to watching football matches on TV and we don't realise how complex it is to juggle between focusing on players or movement speeds, and how much it brings to the actual on-pitch action when done well. In a video-game, you have to be at least as good as on TV, but of course being better is better :)

With various techniques you can give a real identity to the camera. Some cameras will put emphasis on player skills (generally close-ups, used as a basis for replays), a wide camera can make it easier to make plays, others will be specifically adapted for set-pieces, some will show the production values and off-pitch animations, and so on... Camera management has to be suited for any kind of play (short passes, long ones, from wing to wing, offensive, defensive, tight formations, offside trap and so on...) So many parameters to take into account!
Our role here is to make sure the camera focuses on the action and works for all types of play, all set-pieces, and most importantly that they make the game intense and exciting for the user.

Playing with camera effects is something extremely touchy, and yet decisive. For instance, you can create some visual effects that will influence the perceived speed of the ball depending on how the camera follows it. Put a little delay when a striker shoots, with camera focus catch-up, you'll get a greater impression of speed and power for the shot. Of course we're able to follow the ball and always centre it on screen, but we would all fall asleep after five minutes with setting such a camera rule. This is a very basic example, but I guess it helps understanding how we can play with the camera and how this topic is fundamental.
 
Some time ago I took the whole team to a stadium with all access tickets. I made them change seats once every 15 minutes to understand advantages and drawbacks of different views. We then followed this by watching football matches on TV in the office. Yes, with pizzas, yes, with mineral water :). It's a hard life.

Speaking of pizza, going for lunch, will try and eat some salad (I said "try". I'll probably come back with a burger!)

Have a nice one!
Axel

Hey all,

How are you today?
I am fine and ready for this final rush on PES 2010 iPhone after a great week-end skiing with friends in the French Alps! Now I'm back on track, heading for beta deadline.  

Today's topic is one of the most interesting for me, as it's about how to exploit the most specific features of the iPhone and iPod touch platform and turn them into revolutionary controls for your game.

So, what do we have... Accelerometer? Interesting... Multi-touch screen? Awesome... No buttons? Excuuuuse meeee?
Of course taking a look at what is actually done on the platform, we realised there was an easy way around the no buttons issue: virtual pads and buttons. Ok, we would go for this kind of solution as a selectable option, but there had to be more we could do with the iPhone's technology. We MUST come up with something better, something new, something fun. That's where the benefit of our experience with PES mobile arose, that's how we convinced the PES Productions producers that our approach was the best one. Two words: "one-touch".

The "one-touch" AI assisted control mode had been met with great success in our previous opuses of PES mobile, we were going to adapt this idea to the uniqueness of the iPhone platform. And, believe it or not, we have designed and implemented a control mode with no virtual buttons, no virtual pad and no virtual keyboard.  "How on earth do they do this?" Well, I told you, this team is made up of geniuses! :) We thought of the iPhone screen as being one giant input zone and of the accelerometer as a natural directional pad. To achieve this we had to do a lot of pre-production, feasibility mock-ups, trial builds, and validation patterns. It took us a lot of time and effort, and a lot of self-control as well. There were times when we were afraid we'd have to give up on the idea of this unique control system. Self-control, I tell you, some days are only about this...

We're almost there, it's about tweaking and balancing now.
The unique true flow (TM) mode with accelerometer and multi-touch comes with great AI assistance so to ensure the best possible gameplay experience. This is a new way of approaching controls for a football game. Of course we have more "core gamer" controls as well, with virtual buttons and all, allowing you to perform pretty much all of the PES "classic moves"!

Well, this is about it for today. Gotta get back to work. We are now pre-beta, the best and worst stage. Best because when you test the game you can actually enjoy it a lot (this header I scored yesterday was wonderful!) and "feel the game". Worst because it's the time when every tweak can trigger new bugs and un-balance the game, reminding you there's still a long way to go, but less time every minute!  

Bye guys, stay tuned!
Axel

"Axel, Paris Studio was chosen to develop PES on iPhone and iPod touch."
"Whaaaaaat???" (cover your ears, guys) "YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAH!"

It was a great honour for the whole studio to be trusted by PES Productions for a platform like the iPhone. We had fought for this, submitting specific designs, travelling to Tokyo to discuss with the executive producers about how we would approach such a renowned and hugely popular franchise on the iPhone. Now it was real, we were the "chosen ones"!

But where would we start? First, study the game on all platforms, then concentrate on portable devices and touch screen features, then start a tough pre-production phase. It was decided not to "port" the game from any existing version; we wanted the iPhone/iPod touch game to be its own special one.

The good news for us was that we could use previous PES games for reference. And we quickly agreed that we should target the quality of the PSP versions. Firstly because we thought graphics on the PSP looked fabulous, secondly because of the iPhone's processing speed and display capacities being potentially comparable to those of a "small" PSP.

Now, making decisions is a good thing, delivering is something else :) Our target platform is very specific and must be treated accordingly. We started work bearing in mind there was a long road ahead, we've got a great team here, and we are still working hard on the game making sure it is a true PES experience.

Talking about commitment for PES, here's our anecdote of the week (from three weeks ago actually). I was interviewing a candidate for a trainee artist position. After 30 minutes we were done and the guy asked me "Can we play a PES match? If I beat you, would you allow me to tell all of my friends I beat the producer of a PES game?" Fair enough.

Twelve minutes later (I play 10-minute matches, always) he was out, agreeing it had been an epic match (I was trailing by 2-0 at half-time but scored 4 goals in the second one and won 4-2). I am very glad I didn't lose my dignity on that day. I already lost the yearly Konami Studio tournament in December, enough is enough! :).

That's all for now, gotta get back to work folks.

Cheers
Axel

Hi all,

I am Axel de Rougé, "talking" to you live from Konami's Development Studio in Paris. From now on, I will be blogging around our projects to give you some inside and unusual (let's hope!) info about my role here as a producer and studio head, about the team I work with, life at the studio (and sometimes out of it) - and not to forget a very special project we're currently working on.



The Paris studio was built around the PES Franchise several years ago and so far the team has successfully developed PES 2008, 2009 and 2010 on the mobile platform. We're building on our experience and are ready to face any new challenge we're offered. We have some games in preparation for various platforms and are constantly pitching new concepts for gamers today. What are the new gaming habits? What do core gamers value most? And what about casual gamers? Creating new concepts is ok, but how best can we evolve in a striking way with a yearly title?

Take the example of football. It's been more than a hundred years since the main rules have been fixed. So we can't really change the way a match is played in a game, can we? Just like the console game we're aiming for realism and a true football experience with PES on mobile platforms. There is no way we can suddenly design teams of 16 players or players able to use their hands. We have to keep to the classic game but still have room for innovations. Our job is to make these innovations happen in a natural way. Still want to be a game designer? ;)

To end this blog, here is a funny anecdote I found when compiling the laws and rules of football together with one of our game designers: You might know that there are 17 key points that determine the laws of soccer, but not all of them were integrated in the initial constitution written in England in 1863. For instance, stoppage time was not included until 1891 after an incident that occurred during a match between Stoke City and Aston Villa. Villa were leading 1-0 at the very last minute of play when Stoke were awarded a penalty. Villa's keeper took the ball and kicked it out of the ground, by the time the ball had been recovered the 90 minutes were over and the referee had to blow the final whistle before the penalty could be shot? We also discovered that so called "soccer fights" were usual at the time and occurred regularly between players during a match. They were considered symbolic to the virile aspect of this game. We're glad this is no longer the case, as designing a beat'em up inside a football game would be hellish!

Hope you enjoyed it folks and there will be more to come soon, so stay tuned!

Axel

Welcome to my first official blog for Castlevania - Lords of Shadow. My name is Dave Cox and I am the Producer of this title here at Konami.

This blog will, I hope give you some insights into the development of the game and also reveal some cool stuff about what's to come. I will try to keep it updated as much as possible, so check back regularly if you can!

You can also follow me on twitter if you like?  @castlevaniaLOS.

I usually post on twitter everyday so it's a great way of keeping up to date with what we are doing.

Game development these days can take a long time, years in fact. I know many of you are itching for more information on the game. I can assure you that over the coming months, we will be sharing lots of juicy stuff about this new Castlevania with you.

This version of Castlevania is a brand new take on the classic series. We have re imagined the world of Castlevania and designed it in a new modern, gritty realistic way whilst remaining as true as we can to the original concepts.

Our design goal was to recreate Castlevania for modern audiences. To do that we went right back to the beginning and took the original Castlevania game from 1986 as our starting point.

We are developing the game in Spain with our development partner Mercury Steam. These guys are bringing a real European sensibility to the game. Mercury Steam is headed up by Enric Alvarez who is in charge of some of the most talented individuals I have had the pleasure of working with.

He has a very gifted team who are committed to delivering a new and unique take on Castlevania.

But we have help... This game development is truly a worldwide collaboration. Why?

Kojima Productions who are one of the most respected game development studios is also helping us bring this new vision of Castlevania to your game console.

What is exciting for me is exchanging ideas and knowhow with such brilliant people and seeing such impressive results. I hope as you get to see more and more, you will be just as excited as we are about this very special project.

I know you have lots of questions and I know you are impatient for more. Let me assure you that over the coming months you will discover that Castlevania is back and back with a vengeance.

But forget everything you know or think you know about Castlevania because all bets are off.

Newbie and hardcore fan alike will visit a new world of darkness and peril that will send chills and shocks that truly deliver a next gen experience like no other. If you have never played a Castlevania game before then this is the right moment for you to jump in.

Don't worry as this story is totally new and unconnected to all the previous versions of the game. You can easily pick up and play!

So come and experience a series that has set the standard for almost 25 years and now re emerges from the shadows as the ultimate action adventure game for your console!

More Soon.

Dave