Cliff Bleszinski - Control Freak: My Epic Adventure Making Video Games

My Epic Adventure Making Video Games

Control Freak

Cliff Cliffyb Bleszinski

Creator of Jazz JackRabbit, Gears of War, and Unreal and consulting designer for Fortnite

To my amazing wife and soul mate, Lauren.

AAA (triple A)Shorthand for games that cost entirely too much money and time to create and market. By the time you read this, there will probably be six franchises in this space dominating the industry.BaddieA silly way of saying bad guy.Boss fightAfter battling hordes of minions in any video game space, one is often faced with the challenge of dueling with one of these. Often a protracted fight that, when designed properly, is a proving ground for mastery of said title.Bullet hellA shooting game, often played from a side view or top-down, in which the player, often piloting a spaceship, must endure a bazillion shots from a never-ending menagerie of aliens.Butt stompA tried-and-tested move in video games, often in character action jumping games. The player leaps into the air, usually over a foe, and careens down, squashing the poor enemy like a pancake.Co-op mode (or cooperative play)The ability to enjoy a video game with a friend, sometimes on the same screen at the same time, other times over an online connection. Everythings better with a buddy!Cover systemThe ability to hide behind a wall in a game in order to avoid getting shot. Makes sense, right?Cut sceneNoninteractive movies contained within a game that are used to progress the story. Many gamers skip them in order to get back to the action.DeathmatchTag, with guns, in a game, played online.DemoShort for demonstration, a downloadable sample of a game. Players download them and try before they buy.Demo packageThe compressed final product one uploads to the internet for the trial version of a game.Demo sceneA community of insanely brilliant programmers, usually centralized in the Nordic regions, in which the goal is to make the most visually stunning graphical display with as little code as possible. Many rock-star coders have come out of this scene.EditorA tool that allows a developer (or an aspiring one) to modify the games rules and environment.Emergent gameplayLittle happy accidents that come out of numerous systems interacting in a game. For example, in the classic shooter DOOM the player could lure the monsters into shooting one another.EngineJust like in a vehicle, the core of what makes everything work.First-person shooterPopularized by classic games Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM, the genre in which you see down the barrel of your weapons. Yes, usually guns. There arent any first-person hugging games. Yet.Frame rateSimply put, how smooth ones gameplay experience is. The faster the frame rate, the slicker the game and the better the feedback time for interactivity.Game jamKind of like a drum circle for development. A team splits off into smaller sets of people and has a set time limit to craft whatever prototype they think is interesting and/or compelling.GibbingOverkilling a baddie in a way that sends flesh and body parts and buckets of blood flying across the screen. Its not just enough to vanquish your foe, you must turn them into mulch!IPIntellectual property. Characters, world, story, all of them add up to make an IP. Lawyers made me write this.Mech suitA suit that turns a human into a giant walking tank. Think Tony Starks enormous Hulkbuster suit in Iron Man.ModdersPeople who modify an existing video game. Could be as simple as tuning in-game values, editing environments, or creating altogether new ways to play.Moores LawMoores Law states that the number of transistors on a microchip double about every two years, though the cost of computers is halved. Although not an actual law, it has largely held true for the history of computers.MultiplayerA feature that allows you to play a game with other people.One-offOne and done regarding a title. Of course, the last sequel is the one that fails to make money, so usually a bomb.PickupsItems in a game that you, well, pick up. Could be health, or ammunition, or goodies that expand the fiction of the world.PlatformThe venue on which a game comes out. The Xbox is a platform, as is the PlayStation, PC, and even the cell phone.Point-and-clickA type of game that is driven by mouse input, usually 2D adventure games.PolygonThe primary shape and building block of 3D graphics. Connect a few dots, or vertices, to make a flat shape. Put a lot of them together to make, well, anything.Power-upsGoodies players acquire in games to run faster, jump higher, become more lethal, etc.QAShort for Quality Assurance. The people that play a broken game and report what they find until it is no longer broken. However, few games ever ship without any bugs.Resolution textureThe level of detail of a surface in a video game. Walk up that brick wall and examine every nook and cranny already!Rocket jumpingUsing the blast of an exploding rocket to reach extreme heights on a jump. Yes, you shoot a rocket at your feet and jump.RPGRole-Playing Game. Rules often derived from D&D-style games. The player usually goes on a legendary quest that features all sorts of progression, usually in the form of magic and/or combat systems.SharewarePopular in the early 90s, it was a guerilla way of marketing games. Release episode one for free, and then users could buy the other two episodes for a fee by mailing a check to the creators!ShellShorthand for the prototype of an environment that has yet to have lovely art slathered all over it.ShipThe term for when a game is done and headed out the door to store shelves. Ship it! is a common refrain in development circles.Side-scrollerA 2D game in which the player usually goes from left to right in order to proceed.Spherical harmonicsA fancy way of making a character or object look far more detailed than they are, using advanced lighting techniques.Stealth gameA title in which the best way to succeed is to sneak rather than go in guns blazing.Terrain-based gameOutdoorsy games in which the land sprawls as far as the eye can see.UIThe user interface for a game or device. The DIRECTV channel browser, your phones home screen, your cars dashboardthose are all UIs.VaporwareSlang for a game that is perceived to never, ever ship and release.Versus modeA fun way of competing against your friends, usually online.

They didnt kill me.

Bill Gatess security detail, if less disciplined, couldve deleted me from the face of the earth. I am sure they knew how and I am equally sure they possessed the means, whether a Sig Sauer P229, a taser delivering twelve hundred volts of paralyzing electricity, a Krav Magainspired knee strike, a Mark 2 Lancer Assault Rifle (minus the chainsaw bayonet, obviously), or an old-fashioned kick in the balls.

It was May 2005, and it was the most important week of my life, a lifetime crystalized into one single event. I had flown to Los Angeles from Raleigh, North Carolina, for E3, the annual three-day video game conference where the industrys biggest producers, designers, retailers, wholesalers, journalists, and gaming fanatics gathered to see the latest in upcoming new games, platforms, and related technology. That afternoon, I was scheduled to walk onstage in front of nearly one thousand people and provide a live demonstration of Epic Gamess much-anticipated third-person shooter Gears of War.

No one was more ready to step into the spotlight as a rock-star game designer. I had diamond studs in both ears and a gold chain dangling around my neck. I had let my hair grow and dyed it blond. I was outfitted in brand-new Affliction gearit was the nanosecond that brand was cooland had perfected a confident, reporter-friendly rap that made me sound like