Thoughts on Game Dev

[Guest]

To all the Eclipsers, I have some stuff to say.

In game development you always have to think about the objective of your game before you know how to get there. Much like writing a story. What is the purpose of your game? What form of fulfillment will the players have from playing it? The story should be your last problem, especially in a 2D environment like this. Players these days prefer simplicity, not to be bogged down by mountains of text. Let me put it to you like this, say you bought a PS3 game and were loading it up. On the installation part it says "Before you play please read chapter 1 and 2 of the back-story". This does not happen, you are given an overview of what the game is on the back of the case, that's all. Professional developers understand that story must be crafted from interaction with characters, the world and their perception of the overall aesthetics of the game. Put bluntly, learn to say more with fewer words and then connect that to game mechanics (signs, NPCs, items). This will not only improve the effectiveness of your game but will also allow the player more freedom to discover the story themselves (improves the possibility space as Will Wright puts it). Chess is probably the oldest example of crafting a story from dynamics in the game. If you insist on writing 80 billion pages of back-story for your game, you might as well write a book and leave nothing to the player's imagination at all.

Remember to do things in the game that don't require immediate explanation. For instance, your character has started at a dock at the opening of the game. If you write about every section of that characters voyage and what his/her purpose is then what else is there left to enjoy the game for. You know everything already and there is nothing left to discover. Take Half-Life. You know Gordon Freeman is a physicist because he works at a research facility and every scientist knows him by hist first name. You learn about his motives and bio by simply his world. Going back to the voyage example, if your character begins at a dock with a big boat next to him and a captain saiyan "Thanks for journeying with us!", then the odds are your character has been on a boat. Players dont need to know what the boats name is, what kind of boat it is, what the name of the sea was, how many people you killed to get on the boat. You fill in the gaps with other things, maybe you will have a map you can look at which has details on it, maybe you are holding 15 purses.

Next, stop populating your games with the same things over and over again. Sure you can get away with say wooden, iron and steel swords for fantasy. But must every game contain ridiculous pointless weapons and items with no conceivable purpose than to just be there. It starts getting a bit stupid when everyone is carrying "The one legendary Staff of Avalon" If you have to create something very fantastical and fantasy like, why not look at your competition and see if others have the "Fire Sword" or the "Ruby Staff".  With so many clones appearing around here, every game is essentially identical. You need to include things which make the game stand out. Think of unique things to provide to your players, because there are too many "Wooden Bows" lying around all these games.

I mentioned previously the aesthetics of the game. By this I mean the style decisions. It is entirely your own opinion how you want to make your game and what theme to give it (fantasy, sci fi, mob game etc) but a good thing to focus on is consistency. I don't want to walk through a legend of zelda tiled world and then inside the first cave everything goes all RMXP on me. It will confuse me and looks very half-arsed. Like you saw a bunch of nice looking tile-sets and went "I will use them all!". Pick one type of art style and stick. Also, think about architecture in your games and how that relates to where you are. I don't expect to see an entire pyramid in the middle of a castle for example. I don't expect to see a clearly important snow covered grand ancient monument obscured by a random bunch of  Shakespearean buildings. Style your worlds clearly and with context in mind.

Style and story are interchangeable in a well crafted game. You still have to worry about the basic outline of what you are creating however. Plan out the main plot and trim it down to the bare minimum. Try not to use the same story-lines as everyone else. Plots which almost always include some long dead ancient civilisation or a reference to you being part of some prophesy to save the world (the one, the saviour etc). So I guess the main point of this paragraph is, research your competition and plan your game's beginning, middle and end.

On the issue of characters and playable races. Players have had enough of Dwarves, Elves and all other characters that have appeared in every fantasy game for the last 20 years. Try thinking up your own races for a change. Experiment with animals and give them human characteristics (lion men for example, or land based talking jellyfish). Skyrim has a bunch of cool races like Khajit and Argonian as well as different types of humans (Nord, Imperial). Is it so difficult to have your own ideas? If all of the enemies you fight can be numerous and well distinguishable (I once played an eclipse game where one of the big baddies was a giant mushroom), why must every damn game use the exact same races as playable characters. The same applies to your character classes too; mages, warriors, rangers, bla bla bla are all combat based ideas. What about a character class which excels in chopping down trees or the other countless skills you have in your games?

The next thing I want to talk about is developing and testing. A lot of you create a few maps (say 5) and all of a sudden its "I WILL SHOW THE WORLD MY GAME!". To which people play for 10 minutes, say "Is that it." then proceed to download another 5 map eclipse game. Make sure you spend a great deal on development before you even think about accepting none developers in. If you don't have a substantial game before releasing it then it will only affect your reputation. On testing, for the love of god stop calling it alpha beta etc. All this says to me is that you have released your game and just in case people don't like it you can say "Well it's only alpha right now!" This is not going to defend you from a terrible review. People will play it, see how bad it is and then move on. On that note, when was the last game other than Minecraft that you saw which wasn't at least at version 1 when you played it?

Here are a couple of links to make you think. I recommend you definitely read the PDF on the MDA framework. The rest demonstrate how there is no true definition for what actually constitutes as a 'game'.

[Mechanics, Dynamics, Aesthetics (MDA) Framework](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.79.4561&rep=rep1&type=pdf)
[Definition of A Game - Wolfgang Kramer](http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/WhatIsaGame.shtml)
[The many Defitions of Game](http://www.thefreedictionary.com/game)

More ramblings to come.

[Marsh]

Good points, the second paragraph holds true. I like to get into the action immediately. If i want to learn more about a game i can do it through quests or playing the game.

[SilentGamer]

Very, very true. Why can't someone come on the scene with some fresh new ideas these days?!

[SawQuart]

+1

[Xlithan]

Here's a fresh new idea. Why doesn't somebody make a sci-fi roleplaying game instead of a "medieval" one.

There's plenty of people here with programming and graphics art skills. If the right people teamed up, we could see a first in Mirage-based gaming.

[Zetasis]

@Mr.:

> Here's a fresh new idea. Why doesn't somebody make a sci-fi roleplaying game instead of a "medieval" one.
>
> There's plenty of people here with programming and graphics art skills. If the right people teamed up, we could see a first in Mirage-based gaming.

Already working on that. Although its not going to have anything to do with space and other things that usually affiliated with sci-fi, just to clear it up.

[PD]

@Mr.:

> Here's a fresh new idea. Why doesn't somebody make a sci-fi roleplaying game instead of a "medieval" one.
>
> There's plenty of people here with programming and graphics art skills. If the right people teamed up, we could see a first in Mirage-based gaming.

I was planning on doing something like a space-based game but yea…+1 to Spork, interesting read :cheesy:

[Anna Comnena]

@Mr.:

> Here's a fresh new idea. Why doesn't somebody make a sci-fi roleplaying game instead of a "medieval" one.
>
> There's plenty of people here with programming and graphics art skills. If the right people teamed up, we could see a first in Mirage-based gaming.

Main thing is Eclipse has never been that great at handling projectile weapons or combat styles. So unless somehow in your mythos you can avoid projectile combat and have melee and magic or special phenomena combat, having non-fantasy type of settings is harder to do.

[Pbcrazy]

Great thread, I've written a few like this over the years, but this hits the mark!

Posted a link to this in my blog, hope you don't mind.  :P

[Guest]

Its becoming quite the essay.

[Baron]

What a fine read.

This is a remarkably concise summary of some of the most core elements of a games design, particularly applicable to the environment of Eclipse games.

Well written Spork, i look forward to your next one.

[Guest]

Posted up some links for some good reading.