I was just having a chat with our engine programmer about adding a feature to the editor; we chatted back and forth about priorities and how it would work.  The conversation even slipped off topic to HHGTTG.  Eventually, when I said I had to go back and do some more gameplay programming, he told me that he thought he was talking to our character artist, as he was chatting with him earlier that night and didn't notice the window changed.  Maybe our next project will be an improved IM program; seems there may be a need 8)

My first game in the videogame business was for an arcade game.  By that, I mean a big cabinet that eats quarters every 2 minutes.  It was a 3D game, and I was in charge of some gameplay features; putting moves into the game.  The process was intensive!  We would come up with a series of moves we would like, then ask the animators to provide them, and a few days later we would have some animation files that made our 3D models perform those moves.

But remember: Good game development is iterative!

So of course we would always come up with some extra moves that we didn't think of initially.  This is natural; we are always being influenced by TV, movies, sports, and pretty much anything with action.  Sometimes we would ask for new animations and get them; but there eventually comes a time where there is no more time to get new animations.  So I remember being tasked with looking through the old animations and piecing together new moves from the remnants of the old ones... and THAT was fun because it exercised my creative and technical sides; selecting interesting moves and figuring out how to put them together.

In our game, since it is 2D, the animations ARE the models.  We achieve motion by flipping frames on a character like a traditional animation.  There is no difference.  But I am finding more and more that by looking through each frame, I can come up with entire new moves for the variations on the enemies.  You'ld be surprised even by simply stringing old moves together or adjusting the playback speed you can get cool new supermoves.

Level Design or Cooking 101 ?

There is a great quote in the movie Grandmas Boy about the dwarves on level 4 looking the same as the trolls on level 6.  The answer they come up with is draw them in different colors.  When I look back at some of the great platformer games that inspire me, I see that they actually DO recolor and reuse the same sprites in a game, more than I remember. 

I see this as a gameplay tool rather than a bandaid.  Color can be used an indicator as to severity or difficulty of the AI.  It's an easily discernable trait that helps tells you the flavor of the gameplay ingredient.  Many different experiences and challenges can be built by combining different enemy ai's together, just like tastes can be created by chefs when they mix different ingredients.

Does this means that playtesting is the same as taste-testing?

When I first started in the videogames business, I was lucky enough to have the mentorship of many experienced veteran designers and developers.  Back then when I was a junior programmer, I remember developing a feature for a game and showing it to him and receiving the following feedback (paraphrased).

A great videogame is a collection of great features. You're just made one.  Now all you need are 99 more

So this started a culture of quantifying the progress of the game numerically.  Whenever something new was added to game, no matter how much, we would always say "the game just got x% cooler".

Hint: This is great for morale, because visible progress is rewarding; no matter how big the progress may be.

Moral of the story: So why am I saying this?  Because the game just got 10% cooler.  We now have enemy monkeys in the game!  I am really excited about the recent art we have been getting, and it motivates me to figure out cool ways to show it off with interesting AI.