Hello blog chums!

Tap, tap, is there anyone there?

Today we’re looking for programmers! More specifically a Senior Engineer and a Senior Networking Engineer.

Do you know anyone who may fit this description and who’d be keen on joining a developer specialising in all manner of high octane digital mayhem?

If you do then be a love and point them our way. You can find the information about the specific roles on our careers page over here

http://www.ruffiangames.com/careers

Cheers, gaz

Hello chaps and chapesses

Does anyone read this anymore? I’m not sure they do. Just in case though I thought I’d do a quick pimpin’ for Ruffian’s current quest for an Art Director. We’re looking for someone to join our happy gang and take ownership of Ruffian’s visual output. A big task but a fun and rewarding one. As alluded to in previous posts we have some new projects on the go (which we can’t currently talk about GNNNG) and the successful applicant will play a large part in their success.

If you know anyone who may be suitable for a role like this then please point them our way

You can find more details right here

Long time no blog and the disgusting hounds we are the reason we’re back is to ask you to do something for us. I know, I know. We promise be more attentive going forward. We’ll bring you flowers, ask how your day was, watch Corrie with you and all of that nonsense but for right now we just need a little help finding some new coder Ruffians to join the fold.

Since completing Ruffians first born, Crackdown 2, we’ve now moved onto a couple of new games. Rather boringly as is the case for most nascent projects we’re unable to talk about them in any detail right now. What we can say is they’re really exciting, high action, visceral titles that are heavily focussed on online. Which could be a lot of games to be honest

Anyway we need to bolster up our code team and there’s a raft of vacancies that can be found over here. We need a range of skills to help in our ongoing mission to Ruffiate the games industry. If you’re interested yourself then please apply or if you know someone who may be then send the link on.

Thanks in advance.

Any first party game developer working with one of the current console manufacturers will know that this partnership comes with some massive benefits. However, they will also know that along with these advantages they are also expected to make sure that their game commits to as many of the publisher’s first party strategic goals as possible as it tries to ensure they lead the way in the console war.

That’s something evident since our publisher Microsoft Games Studios has implemented the ‘three screens and the cloud’ strategy that was unveiled to the public back in 2009. The three screens are the TV, the PC and the mobile device or smart phone, while the cloud represents data stored online. Microsoft announced that they envisioned a future where any Windows device would create a persistent, shared, connected experience allowing people access to their personal data, information, and services across all three screens and the cloud.

Head In The Clouds

For Microsoft this strategy is not aimed directly at games, the goal is to connect each of the screens and the cloud in as many different ways as possible, harnessing the full spectrum of entertainment mediums. As a consumer it’s clear to see how Microsoft are utilising each of the screens and the cloud from a high level, but what about the specific focus required to make a game cross each divide and present a truly persistent, shared, connected, and valuable experience for the player on every screen? How do we make sure that wherever the player is, that they can access their favourite game in some meaningful way that doesn’t feel like a cheap gimmick?

First of all we focus on the TV, as it’s the one we know the best, all you have to do to consider this one ticked off your list is to make a high quality game that is playable solo as well as multiplayer over Xbox Live. Obviously this game must be adored by the critics and public causing it sell gazillions. Easy. So, now that’s done, what do we do with the rest?

The best connection to the PC is to port your Xbox 360 game across and have it connect to the Xbox 360 game via the Xbox Live/Windows Live integration. This will allow your players to be connected and have a Live shared gameplay experience. This is a great connection between the screens, but the dedication to the PC shouldn’t end there, we still have the social networking phenomena that is Facebook to utilise.

Facebook gives a developer a few options; they can create completely standalone games that only connect to the 360 game by unlocking content between both games, which is a method Microsoft used with their Chuck’s Ducks game that unlocked content in Crackdown 2 when a global game objective had been completed. Or they can create a game that is seamlessly integrated into the 360 game’s universe, which is my preferred option and admittedly far more difficult yet undoubtedly a more compelling proposition for the player. As well as games you also have the ability to create a dedicated Facebook page. Simple, yet incredibly powerful if used properly as it allows you to keep the players interested for a longer period than they normally would be in a game.

Getting Smart

While the smart phone is listed as a different screen I find it difficult to separate it from the PC due to the fact that most smart phones have the power and internet connectivity to do everything the PC can do short of porting the full 360 game.

The one advantage that the phone has is that it comes with you everywhere you go – which means that the possibility of having a fully integrated smart phone game that will somehow ease your progress in the 360 game would likely be played at every opportunity, making it a truly valuable addition to the three screens.

The cloud isn’t getting that much attention right now, but it is likely the area with the most potential of all as it allows the developer to keep the data from all these different games and apps in perfect sync and stored online making it theoretically possible to seamlessly move from one game or app to another on a different screen and continue from where you left off.

I don’t know of any game that is delivering on all three screens and the cloud in this way yet, but I would guess there are quite a few being quietly developed around the world right now.

The City of Dundee has been the hub of the game development community in Scotland for the past 20 years or so. It could be argued that DMA Design started it all off, as it was the first of the games studios in Dundee.

DMA made a name for itself as a successful games development studio which attracted a lot of big name publishers to take a look at the city to see if there were any other talented people ready to set up a studio and make great games.

This paved the way for Visual Sciences – set up by ex-DMA employees – and VIS Entertainment to start up studios and bring the game development workforce in Dundee to over 300 employees. For the past decade the owners and employees from those three studios have steadily influenced and grown the game development community in the Scottish city.

A lot of people don’t realise just how many studios have been formed in Dundee over the years. It’s a long list, considering Dundee only has a population of around 140,000.

DMA Design 1988, Visual Sciences 1993, VIS Entertainment 1996, Denki 2000, Realtime Worlds 2002, Dynamo Games 2004, 4J Studios 2005, Tag Games, Proper Games and Cohort Studios all 2006 and then there’s us, Ruffian Games 2008. I’m almost certain I’ve missed a good few off this list too, so apologies in advance.

Dark Times

Based on this level of growth across a number of different studios you would expect the game development community in Dundee to be thriving, but the past few years have seen a lot of these studios in the unenviable position where they have had to restructure, making a portion of their employees redundant to keep the studio alive.

And others have not been quite so lucky and had to completely close their doors, making their entire studio workforce redundant and then selling off their remaining assets to try to come out of the whole business without accruing major debts.

The first to be affected was DMA Design when it had to make a section of its staff redundant back in 1998. The next to be hit by was VIS Entertainment when it went into administration in 2005 and closed shortly afterwards. Then it was the turn of Visual Sciences which was no more by mid-2006.

More recently Denki had to make the vast majority of its staff redundant in April 2010. And then RTW – the largest game development studio in the history of Dundee – went into administration in August 2010.

And incredibly only a few days later Cohort Studios also had to make around half of its staff redundant. And while this must have been a terribly difficult decision, it at least made it early enough to ensure that the studio avoided administration.

This reads like an entirely miserable course of events, and when you’re in it yourself, it is. For some these closures were disastrous to their personal lives, to others they presented fantastic opportunities that may not have been obvious to them before.

Over the past few weeks Dundee has seen the biggest publishers on the planet send their recruitment teams to the city to talk to the hundreds of people who had been made redundant and many of those guys now have multiple job offers at fantastic studios.

Positive Thinking

So while it looks like a disaster there are normally some positives that come from these unfortunate events. Some people will move away to other studios outside Dundee, others will join the existing studios still doing well in the city, and some will be lucky enough to start their own studios and see if they can make a success out of this fickle industry.

I also heard that Realtime Worlds may have a speck of light at the end of the tunnel, with rumours flowing in about MyWorld being bought by Ian Hetherington – former chairman and chief strategy officer of Realtime Worlds – and also the possibility of APB’s fantastic customisation tools being worked into an already well known engine and franchise in the States.

Admittedly both of these are unconfirmed rumours, but many of the negative rumours over the past months have painfully turned out to be true. So I’ve got my fingers crossed that these more positive rumours also turn into fact.

The Dundee games development community has taken a battering over the years, but it always comes back stronger and I see no reason to believe that this trait will not continue into the coming years.

Afew weeks ago a game developer I know kicked off a bit of a debate on Facebook about his annoyance at people constantly claiming that pre-owned games were responsible for killing the games market.

It was his opinion that it was the lack of replay value in the games that caused people to trade them in rather than the desire to make some easy money.

A few other developers jumped on his original post with their opinions with “it’s the retailers pushing pre-owned on the day of release,” and “DLC is the only way to keep games alive post release,” or “digital downloads are the future of games,” and even “it’s stories that are killing games. Games equal toys plus rules.”

I’ve written about my views on the pre-owned market before, so it’s a given that I believe that pre-owned games are in some way having a negative effect on the games industry. But I do agree with his point about the lack of replay value being at the heart of the problem.

After all, there would be a far smaller number of games available in the pre-owned market if more people had a desire to continue playing them over an extended period of time. I can also see the merit in most of the other statements, although I have to say that the comment about stories killing games initially had me riled, but after giving it more thought I had to admit that it actually does make a fair bit of sense.

Neverending Story

I personally prefer games to have a strong central storyline that keeps me engaged throughout the course of the game. I feel like I’ve got value for money when I get to experience a good story with solid, believable characters and varied sets of objectives.

The thing is, if I’m completely honest, I tend to only play these games once all the way through and very rarely come back to them again. So while my favourite, most memorable games tend to be story driven, they’re not the kind of games I keep coming back to.

And the only reason I never trade them in is my distaste for the pre-owned market. I can see why your average gamer trades in the majority of their games rather than holding on to them.

So, which games do I come back to continuously? Looking back at the titles that have eaten most of my time over the years, they tend to be games with fairly simple rules and a set of mechanics that are easy to pick up and play. Also they offer a level of depth that will see you gain a true mastery of the game if you put in the time.

These games generally get better over time through repeated play, due to the fact that you gain the ability to do more with them, the more you understand how they work and the more you practice your newly learned techniques.

In my own personal experience, these games fall into several different genres like racing, fighting, sports, first-person shooters, turn based strategy – and a few I find

difficult to categorise, like Bomberman and Bust a Move.

Each of these types of game can be played alone, but they truly come to life when you play them with other people. The combination of the simple rules, depth of gameplay and the ability to sit on the same couch with your mates – where multiplayer is available at the same time on the same screen – and dig them in the ribs as you take the piss out of them when you win, all add up to a gameplay experience that can, and does, change each time you play.

Play It Again Sam

You don’t have the same experience each time you play because you’re not playing through the same story each time. You’re simply obeying a simple set of rules, aiming for the same goal and ultimately testing your skills against your opponent.

I still love story-driven, cinematic triple-A blockbuster games, but I really hope there are a few developers out there working hard to try to think about how they can make new innovative games built on simple rules, with an obvious goal and an intuitive set of controls and a level of depth that truly rewards replay.

It seems like this approach will be the best way to avoid the game being traded in after a single playthrough. I know I’d hold onto it anyway.

Over the past month or so we’ve been closely following as many gaming websites and forums as we could.
We’ve also been checking thousands of tweets and Facebook updates looking for any press preview write-ups and any early indications of the public response to the Crackdown 2 demo.

From what we could find the response was predominantly positive; most people were playing the game with their friends online and they seemed to be having a lot of fun. We were pleased with the general response; things were looking promising.

While we were pleased to hear that the demo had been going down well, we still had to wait on the final game going out to the press for their final reviews. This is one of the most nervous times of all for a game developer.

Preparing For Launch

We had spent the past month or so travelling around the world to all of the press events that had been set up, showing the game off to the world’s media in Europe, as well as America and Canada. During the demonstrations the press seemed to be having a great time with the game, so we were quietly confident that we would get decent review scores.

The thing is, you’ve spent so much time and effort pouring your heart and soul into the creation of the game that any negative feedback can feel like a hefty kick in the nuts. So, we were all nervously waiting to see if we would get more pats on the back than bruises to the nether regions.

As the reviews began pouring in we saw we were getting some really good write-ups. Most of the reviewers really enjoyed the game, but admittedly there are a few that didn’t take to it quite so well. It seems that we’ve created the gaming equivalent of Marmite with Crackdown 2.

The most anxious, nail-biting time of all for a game developer is when the game finally goes on sale and we get the ultimate reaction from the public – do they decide to spend their hard-earned cash on the game or do they ignore it and buy something else?

Strangely enough a game can get incredibly high review scores and still not sell as many as you would expect.
In the past few years there have been a few very good games that have been extremely well received by the gaming press but somehow failed to make their mark at retail. Whether this was due to a lack of sustained marketing or simply a lack of appetite for the particular genre remains to be seen.

Ready For Retail

Finally, it was our turn to run the retail gauntlet. As I said, the demo has been out for a while and is doing amazing download numbers which is great, but at the end of the day it’s all about how the full game does.

We genuinely do make games for love of creating them – we’re honestly all games players at heart – but the cold hard truth is that we still need to make sure that the publisher covers its costs and hopefully makes some profit from the venture, otherwise they won’t want to continue working with us. And then we’re all out of a job…

Despite any negative comments that your game may get, they all sweep away for a short time when you first see your game on the shelves in the local game store. I was lucky enough to walk into both GAME and Gamestation in Dundee on the UK release day and see Crackdown 2 sitting in the number one slot, which was a truly fantastic sight.

Seeing your game at number one is an unbelievably powerful feeling, but I did quickly bring myself back down to earth by reminding myself that this was likely just the staff at the store putting the latest big game release up in the top slot.

At the time of writing this – which is admittedly still very early days – it seems that Crackdown 2 is doing quite well and is currently sitting at the top of the UK All Formats Top 40 Chart.

Hopefully it stays up there for a wee while. But even if it doesn’t manage to hold on to the top spot for as long as we would all like, we’ll still be proud of the game that we all made.

Over the years I’ve been asked one question more than any other: ‘What do I need to do to get a job in a game development studio?’

For years it was a really difficult question for me to answer. Thankfully that’s not really the case anymore. Ruffian Games is based in Dundee, Scotland and we’re really lucky to have the University of Abertay which runs a dedicated games development course that teaches its students everything they need to be ready for an entry level position in a games development studio. While that’s a huge benefit in itself, Abertay also runs an annual game design competition targeted at university students. The competition is known as Dare to be Digital and it began back in 1999.

Five Or Six Of The Best

The contest requires university undergraduates – or recent graduates – to form teams of five-to-six people. These teams must then design their game, create a production schedule and create a game pitch and present it to a panel of judges made up of experienced game developers from some of the best games studios in the UK.


If their pitch is successful – only 15 teams will be selected to take part in this year’s competition – they must then work together in a microcosm of a games development studio as they do their best to hit their incredibly tight 10-week deadline. The three key main criteria that Abertay asks its teams to meet are; be creative, have market potential, be technology smart. Nice and simple.


The main objective of this competition is to give the students a very real taste of the various processes, difficult decisions, mixed emotions and hard work that is required to take a game from initial concept through to a playable title that the public can experience and hopefully enjoy. While this is the main objective the more interesting side to this competition for me is the mentoring aspect.

Abertay asks several UK games development studios to provide mentors that can provide some guidance for the teams in each of the main disciplines of game development; production, design, code, art, audio, etcetera. This system allows a strong link to form between the students and the mentors and it’s this link that I believe is the key to the success of the competition.

Not only does the mentoring process help the students make the right decisions at the right times during their development time; it also allows the mentors to see which students are the driving forces of the teams – the ones who are standing head and shoulders above the rest. This provides a fantastic opportunity for the more talented individuals to show off their abilities directly to the mentors over the 10-week period, and many of them have gone on to secure full time contracts at some of the best studios across the UK including Rockstar North, Rare and Realtime Worlds. We’ve also got a few working with us at Ruffian Games right now.

No Contest

The best of the teams also get a chance to have their 15 minutes of fame before they even start in the industry with the BAFTA ‘Ones to Watch’ award. This award is exclusively focused on the Dare to be Digital competition. The team that best represents each of the three categories mentioned earlier are put forward to the BAFTA judging panel with the winning team receiving their BAFTA up on the stage as they bask in the glory of the applause from the elite of the game development community. For guys so young and inexperienced it must be a really amazing experience.


I was lucky enough to be asked to be a design mentor in 2007 and 2008, and have once again been asked to get involved in this year’s competition along with one of our senior coders at Ruffian – Dave Hynd AKA ‘Magic’. Over the course of the next 10 weeks we’ll do our best to help solve problems, inspire creativity, and provide motivation to keep going when teams fall behind schedule and feel overwhelmed.


We want every student to enjoy their time in the competition but to be perfectly honest our goals are ultimately selfish. We want to discover and hire the brightest new talent coming through the university system right now and Dare to be Digital is one of the best showcases around for that talent. 


If you want to follow the progress of this year’s teams in the competition you can sign up at the official website.

www.daretobedigital.com

The big day is finally upon us in the UK. Crackdown2 goes on sale tomorrow, Friday 9th July. To help celebrate, a few Ruffians are going to be in attendance at various GAME stores here in Scotland and a little further south in Newcastle & Gateshead.

If you fancy meeting some of the team, getting a signed copy of the game or just having a chat then here are the GAME branches we’ll be at.

After a long hard slog by everyone on both sides of the Atlantic it’s an amazing relief and moment of elation to be able to post this. Today, Crackdown 2 went into Certification. The moment was screen captured by our chums in MS Test. This is the culmination of a lot of very hard and successful work over the last 15 months.

Crackdown 2 Submitted to Certification

Amazing how so much effort reduces down to one button press.

We’re not quite on the Parade Lap of the race yet. The process from here is like the last quarter mile where a tyre might still burst but there’s still enough momentum for us to roll over the finish line victorious. All the teams have done as much as they can to get the game through Cert as smoothly as possible and now it’s just a small wait for that process to run to completion before the green light is given to get discs printed and put in boxes.

Exiting times.