In Paris I met with the guys from Gost Publishing, who are publishing Bad Day LA in France. After being relieved of my luggage at Charles de Gaulle airport (honestly, it was too heavy anyway) I made my way into Paris via the train and subway system. One thing I noticed was the French attitude “problem”, which to me felt a lot like, “figure it out on your own, stupid.” Even as I am hit over the head with it I can’t help but agree with the sentiment. Tourists are often so insulated from the country they are visiting that they never get a true sense for the color, texture, and feel of the place. At least when you leave France you know you’ve been IN France!

Eidos was kind enough to allow our press event to take place within their offices (they are distributing BDLA in France). I presented the game three different times, to three different audiences of press people, working out the presentation on the fly. By the third presentation I had the format that I stuck with for the remainder of the tour: genesis of the concept, thematic overview, introduction to main character, basic game play overview, talk about interface, introduction of support characters, use of in-game and pre-rendered cinematics to tell the story, talk about weapons and tools, and then a run through of humorous and memorable moments from various areas in the game.

I was pleased that whenever I presented the game it was met with laughter at the appropriate moments. Even when I told the French reporters that the terrorists in the game were French, as a response to rampant anti-French sentiment in the US at the build-up to the Iraq war, they loved it. Every person I met with shared a sense of dismay, disappointment, and fear at what American foreign policy is doing to the world. Bad Day LA seems to provide a much needed comedic vent to our shared frustrations. And the best part, at least in my opinion, is that the game is opening a dialog about these issues in venues where such was previously non existent.

BDLA generated a LOT of non-game related questions such as, “…why don’t American do something about their government?” Sadly I don’t have the answer for this one. Polls indicate that we disapprove of our president, his war, and what he’s doing to our rights as Americans, yet he remains in office, the war continues, and our rights are illegally stripped from us – all in the name of The War on Terror. Perhaps we should take something from the fact that Bush’s numbers improve whenever the media hypes the latest terror scare. Fear is a potent form of control.

When asked “…what right do you have to make a game like this?” I responded for starters, my name is American. And last time I checked it was still legal for my opinion to differ from that of the government… at least that’s the case here in Hong Kong. Things probably won’t work like that for much longer in Bush’s US.

Bad Day LA may not turn out to be the best game ever made, but it certainly establishes the concept of a politically motivated, major video game. I love the fact that already the game is creating dialog and allowing alternate points of view to be expressed. On this trip I’ve been able to tell people that not all Americans are the same, that we share their frustrations, and would also like to see change.

Another question I heard a lot was, “why aren’t big publishers making more games like this, politically motivated games?” I guess if BDLA is successful we might see more. Game, like films and books, can and should be used for expressing opinions on politics and the human condition.

For the fact that companies like Gost in France and Frogster in Germany are willing to publish games like this I have to give them great credit and great thanks.

A new trailer for BDLA was released today. Go check it out:

New Bad Day L.A. Trailer – Xbox
Enlight Interactive released today a new trailer for Bad Day L.A., a third-person action-adventure game that mixes a wild storyline with a unique art style to create a truly unforgettable experience.

A reader recently commented on a previous post entitled “The Goodness of Bad Day LA” as follow:

Wow, I guess school shooting and gang shootings just aren’t enought for some people. I guess there are just too many people out there making good wholesome games and you figured you had to balance the scale a bit and make a mindless killing game. Well good luck with it. When you read about the next teacher who died at the hands of a child you can sit back and say “hey, I helped do that!”

I am baffled whenever someone implies that I might derive pleasure from senseless murder simply because I am a video game designer. It makes me wonder how and why some people have such a negative view of games and their impact on society. Where do people get the idea that video games actually cause murder? How many murders were linked to video games in the US last year? To the best of my knowledge it is zero. Can someone show me otherwise?

I can find a lot of stories that talk about murderers who play video games. For instance:

Ralls nonchalantly described to police investigators his role in the deaths of five people and the robbing of at least 23 others as the Nut Cases terrorized Oakland for 10 weeks ending in their arrest in January 2003, police said.

The suspects told police they would spend their time getting high and playing the violent video game “Grand Theft Auto III” — which rewards players for committing crimes — and then would act out what they’d done when they grew bored with the game.

Full story at: SFGate.com

Here we have a couple of maniacs who went on a killing spree in San Francisco. The crimes they commited were senseless and horrific. The article clearly calls out the fact that they played the “violent video game” GTA3. And it points out that the game “rewards players for committing crimes”. But does this mean that GTA3 caused the crimes? Does anyone honestly believe that these guys would have led a crime-free life of public service if it weren’t for video games? Here we have maniacs who played video games. Video games did not make them maniacs.

In addition to playing games these guys also “got high”. I would imagine that as they drove around on their killing sprees they were listening to something other than Mozart – perhaps something a little more rage filled? They probably enjoyed the a few violent movies. The point is that these kids, and a lot more on top of them, are exposed to violent media day in and day out. When one person snaps why is it entertainment content that receives the blame? People have been going on killing sprees since long before the invention of digital media.

People get road rage and kill one another. We do not blame cars or traffic or poorly designed road systems. A friendly game of golf gets too competitive and someone ends up with an iron lodged in his or her brain cavity. We do not blame golf club manufacturers or the greens keeper. I could keep going, but the point here is that when someone goes nuts in those contexts we rightly blame it on the person, not the cereal he ate for breakfast or his favorite sit-com.

As for how all of this relates to Bad Day LA, I’d like to point out that far from being a “murder simulator” this is a game where the player is actively encouraged to help people in need and rescue people in distress. Killing innocent people results in the player being punished. So unlike GTA3, this is a game that “rewards people for committing acts of heroism.”

Game development as a creative process has always amazed me. It is an instance of group effort and collaboration similar in my mind to building an airplane while taxiing down a runway towards takeoff. Interdependent systems, assets, and efforts must be combined in the right order and with the right emphasis or the whole endeavor could be lost.

Ultimately, most game developments manage to get off the ground. Some do it in their first months, building atop existing technology and inside a known genre (DOOM me-toos). Others languish in the development hanger while designers try to figure out how to invent the equivalent of the flying saucer, something technically imaginable, but not yet proven (The Sims).

Then there is Bad Day LA. Boy, what a strange beast. When I first began talking to the press about it I honestly had no idea what the game was. So I fell back on the default “3rd person action game” line and then quickly changed the subject to the story and theme. So most early interviews read pretty light on actual game play and pretty heavy on the politics, art style, and humor elements.

How, you might wonder, can you build something and not know what it is? Well, I’ll tell you. To start, I’ll be the first to admit that I know little about making games. Yeah, I’ve been doing it for 13 years, and have worked for the likes of id and EA, but hey, what do I know? Maybe I’ve faked my way through it all to this point! Actually, I just don’t think that anyone really knows anything about making games. The medium is too new. Sure, I know how to make a title that fits into an established genre; anyone working in the industry long enough knows how to do that. But to truly *make* a game, to build something from scratch, now that’s a scary thing, a tough thing.

BDLA… well, I wrote this story. 125 pages of dialog, action, and locations. So there’s a lot of verbal content and story. We took all that and built a world around it. For a long time Bad Day LA was basically a collection of in-game and pre-rendered cut scenes that told the story of our main character, Anthony Williams, trying to save himself while disaster after disaster struck Los Angeles. Not a game. Not really fun.

When I went out on the BDLA press tour a few months ago I was basically showing simple 3rd person action set between these cut scenes. People laughed, things exploded, but the thing I was glossing over was that the game itself was really painfully boring. There was no gameplay. I knew it, I was worried about it, but I sorta figured that something good would eventually emerge…

Luckily it has. In the past two months the gameplay has grown out of the story and the world in a very organic way. The concept of “chaos management” as a gameplay mechanism has matured and now delivers a very addictive and fast paced bit of entertainment.

The screenshot shows what’s up. You’ll see that super imposed over the player’s view of the world is a collection of little round icons. These show the player any and all nearby events or NPCs that might change the status of the threat advisory for the level. Burning people, injured people, zombies, terrorists, and mission points are all represented. If the player ignores people who are on fire those people will burn to the ground and create a frowny. If an injured person is allowed to die, same thing. Good events, such as saving people or killing zombies, will create smilies. Together frownies and smilies move the threat advisory bar up and down.

The higher the threat advisory the more difficult it is to proceed towards finishing missions. So the player is forced to balance managing the local chaos level with moving through the level towards the eventual goal of escape. We’re still tweaking and tuning it, but when it works it really works. Not only that, but it fits perfectly with the narrative and feels pretty original to boot.

Certainly this sort of design by natural evolution isn’t that common, and brings with it unpredictability and risk, but hey, it’s a lot more fun than creating “yet another shooter”. I’m very curious to see how the world is going to react to this one.

(Bad Day LA Screenshot – Showing a circle of icons around the player representing angry citizens, zombies, people on fire, and other useful info.)