Games, But Not As We Know Them
Author of this post: Nina Truman | About Blog Authors »
So where does someone now considered an industry “veteran” go when they fancy a break from “games”? It wasn’t that I’d stopped enjoying working on games, more that I had a sudden overwhelming urge to do something “worthy” with what I’d learned over the last 16 years. Not that relaxation and entertainment isn’t worthwhile, but surely there must be something else?
My search was on, to find something creative, where I could learn and grow. I needed a change from entertainment, but still wanted to put the skills I’d built up over my time in the industry to good use … A tall if not impossible order, or so I thought - until I discovered TruSim.
TruSim is a division of Blitz Games Studios specialising in Serious Games. Possibly the most refreshing thing I’d heard during an interview in a long time was -
“We’re interviewing for something slightly different, developing games where the sole purpose is not just to entertain.”
Brilliant!
Serious Games use the same engaging techniques and technology that make entertainment games such fun to play and put them to work for serious purposes such as training and visualisation. At the time TruSim were working on prototypes that could potentially be used for medical training purposes, either in conjunction with the military or health services.
One of my immediate discoveries was that unlike the usual publisher / developer relationship, for Serious Games to achieve the purpose required, a whole team of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) need to be involved. The second discovery was that I am indeed an SME myself. It seems obvious now, but up until this point game graphics had simply been “the thing I do”. In the realm of Serious Games these familiar work pipelines and techniques were to be used to achieve something with a completely different purpose.
Thankfully I wasn’t expected to enlist in the military nor spend 6 years qualifying in the medical profession, though we did need to have good background knowledge of the areas in which our potential end-users were working. To be involved with SMEs such as Field Surgeon Lieutenant Colonel David Vassalo and Dr Simon Carley of Manchester Royal Infirmary was a huge advantage and a huge privilege. It enabled us to understand exactly who might use our product, and why. Their guidance and expertise was invaluable.
To say I was surprised at the consideration and help given by some of the end users would be an understatement. Shortly after joining TruSim I found myself heading over to the RFA Argus hospital ship. I have to admit it was a bit daunting, suddenly being flung from my safe little world of polys and pixels. Like any other artist I’ve spent hours, days, painstakingly taking photographs for reference but it’s not every day the Royal Navy welcome you on board, delay their shore leave and set up a training exercise for you to film and photograph! It definitely brought home the seriousness with which Serious Games are being taken.
RFA Argus Casualty Reception reference and RFA Argus Casualty Reception render
At times the research was difficult. Looking through photographs of disturbing injuries wasn’t something myself nor any of the team had done before, nor something we enjoyed, but part of our job was to create an appropriate level of fidelity in our work. If we were to create a useful end product we had to do our research thoroughly and well. It was the one area in which we were able to come into our own as SMEs using modelling and sculpting techniques in Maya and Zbrush, together with the next gen mapping techniques to create realistic environments, people, and in this instance injuries.
Triage Trainer Prototype
However, meticulously crafted environments and spot-on modelling do not necessarily make for the best Serious Game. In fact, we found they could detract completely from the purpose at hand.
Working with Professor Bob Stone, Director of the Human Interface Technologies Team at Birmingham University gave us great insight into acceptable levels of fidelity for purposes required. Our SME in Human Factors (people’s ability to interact with technology in our case) has among other things worked with a number of potential end users to ascertain their reaction to various prototypes.
With our plethora of reference we set about doing everyone’s enthusiasm justice creating some great realistic environments, but soon found that in order to make the training useful our accuracy needed to suffer, a strange and at times difficult concept for artists used to making things as realistic as possible. However, the primary purpose here was to engage the trainee, and in Serious Games, everything else comes second to that consideration.
Working in Serious Games has given me a completely different appreciation of the nature and purpose of games technology, and has also made me realise some of my own strengths.
