WHO AM I?

Hi there! I'm Gregor and I'm a designer and programmer at Frictional, which means I'm responsible for all the fun events in our levels. Okay, maybe they're fun just for us.

It's me! And the sign on our door, printed on an A4 and a little crumpled...

I'm a more recent recruit, having joined around September 2016. My job description, gameplay programmer / designer, is purposefully vague. While I mainly work on level scripting, I also spend time on AI, gameplay systems and level design. I also worked on our collaboration with the Tobii Eye Tracker, which I will talk about later. The great part about this is that my work never gets stale and almost none of my days feel the same.

I'm originally from a little known country called Slovenia, but I've recently moved to the land of the vikings to become one myself. Or, in other words: I moved to Malmö around two months ago and now work from our fairly new office.

My setup at work - right next to the fanart wall! No deskmate yet, though. :'(

I absolutely adore our office and go there pretty much every day to socialize with and get inspired by my co-workers. I'm also the one who nags everyone with occasional movie and gaming nights, where we usually grab some snacks, relax and watch a horror movie (obviously), or games like FIFA and Jackbox Party Pack!

BACKGROUND

I can't really remember the time when I first started playing games. I do know that around the late 90s my dad brought home an Intel 80186 PC one day, thinking he would use it for work. He was wrong. After he showed me a couple of MS-DOS games and I realized I could make things move by pressing buttons, I became glued to that PC. My parents didn't manage to pry me from it, so I've been playing games ever since. Not on the same machine, obviously.

I played a lot of games, but didn't touch the horror genre for the longest time. I still remember having vivid nightmares and being unable to sleep whenever I saw something remotely scary on television. When I was older, however, a friend of mine bought me Amnesia as a "gift". It was a dare, of course, but because I didn't want to disappoint my friend, I played through it. It was just as scary as everyone was telling me, perhaps even more so.

But while I was playing it I also realized that it was about more than just scaring the living hell out of me. It managed to fully immerse me in its world and story, which I had not experienced to this degree before. This is how I got introduced to the horror genre, and to Frictional, which would later impact my life more than I could have possibly imagined.

Making games has been my dream ever since I can remember. Given how much fun I had playing them, I thought it would be great if I could make my own – which is why I always liked messing around with settings, seeing what I could do with cheat codes, and figuring out damage formulas so I could get an advantage. It wasn't until I got sucked into a game called Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, however, that I actually made my first array into creating my own content. I made lightsaber hilts, maps, and even modified some scripts to make the game play like I wanted to.

Unfortunately, growing up in Slovenia there was no real game dev scene there, so I forgot about my dream. It simply never occured to me that I could make games for a living. However, since I was already using my computer so much, I thought it would be fun to work in IT. So I learned some basic C++ programming in high school, then went to a computer science university where I learned a lot more about programming and software in general.

For a long time I resigned myself to becoming a web developer, taking some summer jobs and part-time work in that field. The job became more and more mundane and boring, until I finally realized that I couldn't do it long term, and that I had to find something more fulfilling. That is when I remembered my dream of making games, how much fun they brought me and how great it would be to be able to help someone else have the same experience. I already had a lot of programming experience, so I became determined to join the games industry.

I immediately quit my part-time job and started working on my first small game. I wanted to do everything on my own so that I would learn all the intricacies of game development. A year or so of studying and work amounted to Welkin Road, a little puzzle platformer with grappling hooks.

In Welkin Road you use your two grappling hooks to solve movement-based puzzles.

While I was in the process of finishing Welkin Road, I started looking at potential studios I could join. That's when I saw a tweet from Frictional, mentioning that they were looking for a designer / programmer. I didn't think I was ready, but I figured this was my only chance to work with the company, so I sent my resume in anyway.

To my big surprise they offered me a work test, to see whether I was suitable for the role. I gave it my best, but after I sent in my project I tried to prepare myself for the inevitable let-down. Instead I got a positive reply and an invitation to an interview. The final decision came a couple of weeks later.

Spoiler alert: I got the job.

Given that I was a big fan of Amnesia and SOMA, the decision to accept was a no-brainer. However, it took me quite a while to properly register that I had fulfilled my lifelong dream. A year and a half later I realize how lucky I am to be one of the few people who can wake up on Mondays with a smile on their face.

After joining, I immediately started working on my introductory tasks aimed at learning the new tools. I joined at the same time as Max, so we bonded over struggling to understand all the new stuff. When those tasks were done, I started working on my first real project: designing and implementing eye tracking features in SOMA, which I will talk about in more detail in the next section.

A while after I was brought on, the company started looking to set up a studio in Malmö. I already knew that if I wanted to make games, I would most likely have to move, so the decision to move to Malmö didn't take me long to make. Finding a place to stay took a while, but I eventually managed to find a nice apartment and settle in, in no small part thanks to my incredibly kind and welcoming co-workers.

The setup in my new home in Malmö!

FIRING LASERS (more commonly known as Eye Tracking)

As promised, I will now spend some time talking about my adventures in eye tracking. After receiving a unit from Tobii, I first tested it with a bunch of games that already had eye tracking support. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided was a particularly useful use case study, since it had a robust implementation and used the eye tracker in interesting ways. I was initially very surprised at how well the eye tracker worked in that game, and how seamless and intuitive it was to use without putting any strain on my eyes. This gave me the confidence that we could use this to enhance SOMA.

Once I got a feel for what the technology was capable of, I read through Tobii's SDK documentation and code samples to figure out how it all worked. In simple terms, the Tobii eye tracker provides a continuous data stream of screen coordinates that represent the location on the screen the user is looking at. Think of it as firing 60+ laser beams per second from your eyes to your monitor. Bring it on, Cyclops!

After I was done feeling like a superhero, I looked into how we could use this in our own engine, HPL3. Since Tobii's SDK was easy to use, integrating it into HPL3 wasn't too difficult, especially with the help of our engine programmer Peter.

With the technical aspects more or less dealt with, I started thinking about the design of our eye tracking features, and how we could best make use of this technology to enhance the game. This included brainstorming sessions, quick prototyping and a lot of feedback from the rest of the team.

It quickly became clear that while controlling and moving stuff around on the screen with your eyes is fun, it becomes tiring and uncomfortable really fast. For a good experience, the player must never be actively thinking about using their eyes. Instead, the game should react to the player's natural eye movements and try to enhance the experience. A negative side effect of this design principle is that unfortunately quite a lot of features become very subtle and hard for the player to notice consciously, despite having an overall positive effect.

The white circle is where the player is looking.

Another interesting aspect of designing these features was how eye tracking could be used in a very immersive first person horror game. Horror games often rely on where the player is looking to trigger certain events, which always means a certain level of uncertainty about whether the player actually registered what was happening on the screen or not. With eye tracking, this uncertainty became very minimal, which meant that the timing of a lot of the events in SOMA naturally improved.

In the end, we ended up with a number of eye tracking features we were happy with. The most noticeable ones are extended view, which makes the viewport pan towards where the player is looking, and the ability to control the flashlight with your eyes. A number of enemies also react to the player's gaze, such as the flesher monster becoming aggressive when looked at and teleporting when the player blinks, or the deep sea diver stopping when the player maintains eye contact.

Other features are much more subtle and designed to enhance immersion and mood. For example, staring at creepy and gory scenes zooms the screen slightly, giving the impression that Simon is in a trance or shock-like state and can't look away. When the player looks at enemies, the screen distortion effect intensifies to further discourage players from looking at them.

Additionally there are some really secret ones, such as Ross' distorted computer messages appearing exactly when the player blinks, to further reinforce how Ross is inside Simon's head. My personal favorite, however, is a subtle reaction from K8, the incredibly friendly and helpful swimbot, which gives the player a small opportunity to communicate with it.



In summary, working on eye tracking has been an incredibly fun and rewarding experience both because of the challenge, knowledge gained and the creative freedom. Besides, who doesn't enjoy firing lasers with their eyes? The end result hopefully enhances the SOMA experience, even if just a tiny little bit. So if you have the PC version on Windows and a Tobii eye tracker, consider giving an even more immersive version of SOMA a go!


Eye tracking is just a small part of my work at Frictional though, as I'm currently working on one of our next projects. I'm already really proud of what we're creating and I'm happier than ever with my choice to follow my dream of making games. We're all really excited to be able to share more of what we're doing, but until then we'll just keep doing our best. This also reminds me it is time for another gaming night, to keep our spirits up!

Quality Frictional Humour™ from a recent Jackbox Party night.

Wanna see who else works at Frictional? Check out the rest of the People of Frictional posts!

Download Mario Odyssey for Switch

 Download

Now, you might be wondering what happened to Wolf after we parted ways in Viridian, but he couldn't have been farther from my mind as I made my way down from Mount Moon toward Cerulean City. I didn't care where he was or what he was doing. I really hoped we wouldn't cross paths again, but Kanto is a surprisingly small place for a Pokémon trainer, I would come to learn. I would run into him again in Cerulean, but in the short time since I started this journey, I had changed. I had a firm resolve and determination to take care of my Pokémon, rather than win at all cost like Wolf or Team Rocket. I had suffered the heart break of losing Rascal and Nibbles, my first two Pokémon. I was still trying to find my way, but I had also grown stronger.
Before I get to Wolf, let me catch you up a bit. Along the way down from Mount Moon, I happened upon a new Rattata. He was strong and fast. He reminded me of Rascal when we last saw each other as opposed to the weak and fragile thing he was when we first met. I caught this Rattata and named him Rascal Jr. If I learned anything from encountering the Dread Rocket Raticate, it was that there was untapped potential within Rascal Jr that I would have to bring out before I could challenge the Cerulean City Gym. Rascal Jr. could be taught to deliver a cruel bite.
I trained more rigorously than ever before. I made sure Rascal Jr. was not only faster and stronger than that Raticate on Mount Moon, but had the hyper fang bite of doom in its arsenal. I did not rest until Rascal Jr met my high expectations for what he was capable of. Retrospectively, I was perhaps a bit hard on Rascal Jr because of how I was feeling about Nibble, but Rascal Jr was soon the strongest Pokémon on my team as a result. As always, although these training sessions were aimed primarily at Rascal Jr, the rest of the team benefited from them as well. Vesper even learned a powerful bite.
During this time of intense training, I was staying in Cerulean City close to our training grounds on Route 4. You simply couldn't get around Cerulean City without hearing Bill's name several times a day. Now Bill is a self-proclaimed Pokémon enthusiast and is credited as the inventor of the Pokémon Storage System that we all access regularly to store and transfer Pokémon even today.
Although Professor Oak first showed the system to me, I had been using it regularly to transfer some Pokémon to my sprouting sanctuary project via Bill's storage system without ever knowing whose it was or how it got there. I had certainly taken it for granted, and I think we all do every now and then even still. I decided that before I would challenge the Cerulean City Gym, I wanted to hike out to the coast north of Cerulean and meet Bill personally. I was curious, and I was thankful.
When I was happy with the progress Rascal Jr had made, I packed up for the trip and headed out across Nugget Bridge to the north. It was there on that fateful bridge that I was tracked down by Wolf. He called out to me from behind just as I was setting foot on the bridge. Apparently he had heard that I was training in town these past few days and was eager for a rematch. I tried everything in my power to keep my face neutral and not unleash the full extent of my anguish at seeing Wolf. I'll never know how successful a job I did.


Wolf had a stupid, cocky smirk on his face when he threw out his first Pokémon which was a Pidgeotto. It was plain to see that he considered this his prize bird in the collection and it was fun for me to see the smirk wipe off his face when I tossed out my recently evolved Kiwi, now a formidable Pidgeotto himself. The two bright-breasted birds squared off against each other on the ground, then took to the sky.
Kiwi and I launched our all-too-familiar "sand in the face" technique which had yet to fail us. Wolf's Pidgeotto had suffered this indignity once before but still fell right into our trap. It's ability to land any hits on Kiwi tanked and Kiwi was soon the victor of the Pidgeotto contest. Wolf was frowning now as he threw out his next Pokéball.
His next Pokémon surprised me. It was a curious little yellow creature that I hadn't encountered yet. More surprisingly, it was completely useless in battle. I believe Wolf had just caught it earlier that day and didn't even bother to train it yet. It was easy pickings for Vesper, who I can rarely say had easy pickings. The Abra (as the Pokédex informed me) seemed particularly weak to Vesper's ability to leech life out of its opponent. It took out the weak little Abra without any problems. I heard Wolf let out an audible curse and it was my turn to smirk.
Wolf's third Pokémon was a Rattata. I could tell just by looking at it that it was a tough little fellow. Still, I couldn't resist tossing out Rascal Jr and sizing up which of us had the better trained Rattata. As Wolf's Rattata attempted to lower Rascal Jr's guard with disorienting tail whipping, Rascal Jr chomped down hard. Following up with a very quick attack, Rascal Jr proved to be the winner of this match up and without even taking any hits at all.
I knew Squirtle, or one of its evolutions would be Wolf's final Pokémon based on our previous match. I admit I was a bit worried about it,  but I kept Rascal Jr out on the bridge to hold his ground. Wolf's Squirtle managed to land a couple of tackles on my agile Rattata, while Rascal Jr used his own tail to disorient the Squirtle. Then Rascal Jr bit down on Squirtle with such ferocity that it knocked it completely out of the match. Victory was ours and it felt so damn good this time.
I really felt like the superior trainer. Thinking back on Viridian City, I could see now the difference between a trainer who took his training seriously, and someone like Wolf who just took it all as an idle hobby. I felt bad for Wolf's Pokémon, honestly. They fought so hard for him and he didn't even care.
When Wolf extended a hand for me to shake, I simply shrugged. Wolf stifled a small laugh and shook his head. I remember him saying, "It was good to see you, Fox. Keep up the hard work." Then he turned and walked back into town. I watched him go this time, remembering how angry watching him leave made me the last time. This time I felt almost nothing. This time I was stronger both as a trainer and in my resolve to train harder - to train especially harder than Wolf.

Current Team:
Attacks in Blue are recently learned.

Over the years, most of the people selected to represent South Africa in the Protea Esports Team have participated in the Online Provincial Championships.

Mind Sports South Africa (MSSA) is proud to announce that it shall host the 2020 Online Provincial Championships, which will offer local players the opportunity to qualify for selection to the national squad.

MSSA's 2020 Online Provincial Championships is the third last senior provincial event prior to the start of the selection process.

The championship shall be held on 18 April 2020.

Game titles to be played are:

TITLES	09H00	10H30	12H00	13H00	14H00	15H30
Paladins PC/PS4	Round 1 Starts	Round 2 Starts	Round 3 Starts	LUNCH	Round 4 Starts	Round 5 Starts
FIFA'20	Round 1 Starts	Round 2 Starts	Round 3 Starts		Round 4 Starts	Round 5 Starts
Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) 2020	Round 1 Starts	Round 2 Starts	Round 3 Starts		Round 4 Starts	Round 5 Starts
HearthStone	Round 1 Starts	Round 2 Starts	Round 3 Starts		Round 4 Starts	Round 5 Starts
Street Fighter V	Round 1 Starts	Round 2 Starts	Round 3 Starts		Round 4 Starts	Round 5 Starts
Clash Royal	Round 1 Starts	Round 2 Starts	Round 3 Starts		Round 4 Starts	Round 5 Starts
Counter-Strike: GO	Round 1 Starts	Round 2 Starts	Round 3 Starts		Round 4 Starts	Round 5 Starts
League of Legends (LoL)	Round 1 Starts	Round 2 Starts	Round 3 Starts		Round 4 Starts	Round 5 Starts
DotA 2	Round 1 Starts	Round 2 Starts	Round 3 Starts		Round 4 Starts	Round 5 Starts
TEKKEN 7	Round 1 Starts	Round 2 Starts	Round 3 Starts		Round 4 Starts	Round 5 Starts

Tournament Structure:

As per the MSSA's rules, being:

• If less than six teams, the championship shall be a Round Robin Championship

• If 6 to 10 teams enter the championship there shall be four rounds as played to the Swiss System

• If 11 or more teams enter the championship there shall be five rounds as played to the Swiss System

Eligibility:

• Any team consisting of players who are Registered Players affiliated to a MSSA member club may enter.

Entry fee:

• Entry is R35.00 per Registered Player.

• Only fully-paid-up Registered Players may participate in this event.

Entries:

• Entries need to be submitted on or before 13 April 2020.

• The entry form may be downloaded from: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M07rv0ER9jqE25IqMNZqGlsUPqJaE_X2/edit#gid=1844490715 and submitted to mindsportscorrespondence@gmail.com

Medals:

Medals shall be handed over to winners at the next MSSA LAN that they attend. 

      MALE:

• PREMIER: Medals shall be awarded to the first three teams.

• UNDER 24: Medals shall be awarded to the first three teams that have not won a Premier medal and which are comprised entirely of students currently registered at any officially recognised University.

• SCHOLARS: Medals shall be awarded to the first three teams of learners currently registered at any officially recognised school, provided they have not received any Premier medals. 

        FEMALE:

• PREMIER: Medals shall be awarded to the first three teams.

• UNDER 24: Medals shall be awarded to the first three teams that have not won a Premier medal and which are comprised entirely of students currently registered at any officially recognised University.

• SCHOLARS: Medals shall be awarded to the first three teams of learners currently registered at any officially recognised school, provided they have not received any Premier medals.

Colours:

• Protea Colours: Only Players that are selected to represent South Africa in International Championships may earn National Colours if the Protea Colours Board's criteria are met.

• National Colours: All Players that win all of their Matches at a National Championship will earn National Colours.

• Provincial Colours: All Players that win all of their Matches at a Provincial Championship will earn Provincial Colours. All Players who score within the top 50% in a specific Period at a Provincial Championship, and who also score within the top 50% at a National Championship in the same period and in the same year, will earn Provincial Colours.

General:

• The championship shall be played on: 18 April 2020

• The first round will start at 09H00. Players shall be given 60 minutes to complete each round.

• The championship is accredited as being of the same status as a provincial championship. 

• The championship shall be used for the awarding of provincial colours;

• The championship shall be used for the awarding of medals for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places in Premier, Under 24, and School categories;

• The championship shall be used for the ability to qualify for National Team Squad.

• All medals shall be awarded to the recipients at a MSSA LAN championships.

Umpires:

• Umpires may only be contacted over Skype on the day of competition. Any communication not on the Skype channel shall be entered into.

Entries:

• All clubs must enter their teams via the Google Drive.

• To enter, the club must complete the Google Drive document. The entry form may be found on Google Drive. Clubss are to download the entry form, completed the downloaded form, and e-mail it to Mind Sports South Afica. The link for such form is: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M07rv0ER9jqE25IqMNZqGlsUPqJaE_X2/edit#gid=1844490715

• Payment shall be effected before start of play.

Ladder:

• For games to count for the National Ladder, teams must advise the Umpires before the start of each match.

Shout casting:

• MSSA shall decide who may shout-cast the games.

• Anybody wishing to be appointed as a Shout-Caster must apply in writing tomindsportssa@iafrica.com

Also read:

• Ensuring gender equity in esports.
• MSSA celebrates its women who have earned Protea Colours.
• Why schools and universities should invest in esports.
• How school clubs affiliate for the 2020 season.
• The various events held by Mind Sports South Africa.
• Why schools and universities should invest in esports
• New National Team Selection Criteria
• Selecting the national Protea teams for Mind Sports South Africa.
• The road to Eilat
• Boardgames: MSSA's 24th Western Cape Provincial Championships - 28 and 29 March 2020.
• Esports: MSSA's 24th Western Cape Provincial Championships - 28 and 29 March 2020.
• Provincial Online Student Championships - 11 April 2020

Ep 35: My Kingdom for an App is live!

https://soundcloud.com/user-989538417/episode-35-my-kingdom-for-an-app

Adam Loper and I talk about Tabletop Minions and finding opponents for your games.

Join the conversation at https://theveteranwargamer.blogspot.com, email theveteranwargamer@gmail.com, Twitter @veteranwargamer

Follow Adam and the Game For app on Twitter! @tabletopminions @iamgamefor

Game For app for iOS and Android https://iamgamefor.com/

Tabletop Minions Expo https://tabletopminions.org/tmx/ June 9th-10th, 2018

Try Audible for your free audiobook credit by going to http://audibletrial.com/tvwg

Tabletop Minions Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/user/tabletopminions

Tabletop Minions Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/tabletopminions/

Tabletop Minions Paint Showcase Club Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/236901433338119/

Sam Lenz blog http://samsonminis.blogspot.com/

GenCon http://www.gencon.com/

Adepticon http://www.adepticon.org/

MOHISTORY show at Ft. Leonard Wood, MO. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mohistory-tickets-41577851473

Music courtesy bensound.com. Recorded with zencastr.com. Edited with Audacity. Make your town beautiful; get a haircut.

The last post on the blog covered our first on table adventures in the Italian Wars and in that piece I did some written explanations of the rules we were trying out, Furioso. A link to that post below,

https://yarkshiregamer.blogspot.com/2019/12/lets-play-italian-wars-furioso-style.html

In addition to that I did some video run throughs of a small set up game just to make things easier to grasp.

The first video gives a basic introduction of the rules along with an description of the Initiative phase which is the prime driver for the rest of rules.


The second video covers the first move, before units get into real action and shows how the moves sequence works and covers some basic shooting and Artillery.


I noticed the odd dice missed off the odd throw in that run through, it's a new set of rules and I'm talking without a script, that's my excuse 😎


The third video is quite long (half an hour) but goes into a bit more detail as in the second move units get into contact, there are run throughs of three seperate melees which hopefully illustrate the process involved.


The final video in the series covers a few parts of the rules that I didn't cover in the videos, some stuff we didn't use in our tests and some thoughts on some house rules we used.


All in all a positive experience and hopefully the videos and previous post will give you an idea if the rules are for you. Thanks for watching.