232: Game Development for the Damned and Delirious

[Bradley Campbell]

Game Development for the Damned and Delirious

Thanks to the proliferation of user-friendly game creation software, the amateur game development scene is more crowded than ever. Unfortunately, so are the forums devoted to it. Bradley Campbell explains how online indie game development communities aren't as helpful as they initially seem.

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[Doug]

Well... this is abit of a downer. All valid points though; especially the thing about the internet as a communication medium - it simply is very hard to keep motivated when your only form of communication with, say, the art guy or the writter guy is via IM and email.

 

[KhakiHat]

I fear that this article has sparked my masochistic side. Must. Learn. C#.

 

[Wolfrug]

Today's "constructive criticism" is nothing more than looking at a preview of some hero character's sprites and saying "What the hell is wrong with his head? Hats do not work that way!"

This, as you point out later, is no different than what, say, a budding novelist might receive in terms of "constructive criticism" from other would-be novelists. This considering literary criticism is hundreds of years old. So I wouldn't bet too much on that the atmosphere is going to change terribly much with time (growing pains, not so much)! Yet, there are luckily exceptions to the rule, and that's where art can truly prosper, whether it's indie game developement or poetry.

Nice article!

 

[hamster mk 4]

I admit there have been times on the game dev forums where I have ridiculed a "I have a great idea" post, or felt smugly superior when I hear some guy gave up on his dream due to lack of interest. But on a whole my experience with Indie Game Dev sites has been quite positive.

Many times the old guard have helped me over come a technical hurdle. There is no better place to turn if you need a function or a library that does this, this, and this... but you don't know its exact name. I have even reciprocated towards younger members with regard to their coding troubles.

I can get some free play testing done by submitting working demos. Usually people are pretty supportive once they see I put in some effort into an idea, be it concept art, design doccument, or demo. I think effort you put in outside of these forums is what mostly determines how people will react to you. For example asking a technical question before asking google will get you shunned. Where as asking a technical question and listing the google searches that have not turned up useful information, will get you pity and maybe even help.

Our differing experiences may also be due to the forums we go to. I have found TIGSource and Allegro.cc to be very supportive environments. I never went near gamemaker forums because I don't use gamemaker.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I guess that many people don't realise that the key to successful bedroom game programming is to have modest goals and to put in a lot of work. Even reading that people will not realise how modest their goals would have to be and just how many hours of mentally demanding work they will have to do.

There is also a terrible sort of bragging game in the indie development community where developers boast about how they created a world class game in 3 hours after staying up all night partying. Yeah, for the amount of attention and praise most of these games get that is probably what they wish they had spent making them. The amount of time it takes to work out all of the techniques and tricks needed to make a game in that time frame has to be more than that. Also with software development of any sort, something that outsiders can easily be fooled by is the fact that prototypes are often fun and relatively easy to make. The real boring, soul crushing, grind of software development is taking the prototype and working on it until it is something worth a damn. "I made this game in 3 hours," yeah son, that's great for you, I'll give you some respect when you have spent 20 hours working on a hard to fix bug that makes your game suck.

 

[Ryan-Phoenixan]

I agree with the above post. I used to tour the Game Maker forums often, actually, and I will say from a Game Maker based magazine article that smarting small is the best thing you can do for yourself, as an individual.

I screwed up big time in that aspect, and I learned that I am not a jack of all trades in game programming or design. I can only do so much.

 

[TarkXT]

What's interesting is you don't find this kind of thing very much in PnP game development. I think it has a lot to do with an older crowd. Really so long as you don't blatantly say you're trying to make "DnD but better" most message boards can be rather informative if you know where to go.

Even if you are trying to drop a fantasy heartbreaker on them they'll at least give you insight in to your mechanics and probably pull the thread of an idea that will unravel the cover of DnD and reveal a much better game.

I think the best thing any new game developer can do is to do their homework. A lot of these message boards get flooded with the same question over and over again. To this end using the search function on a message board and combing through the stickies before making a post can often answer your question before you must suffer the wrath of people pretending to be Yahtzee.

Speaking of which I'm curious on to his take on this considering his experiences in that area.

 

[Glic2003]

When Mark Overmars created Game Maker, I doubt he had any idea of the Pandora's box of horrible games he was about to open onto the world. Every time I visit the Game Maker forums, it's full of 12-year olds asking people for help with making their own remake of Sonic, or their Zelda clone, or their 2D version of Halo. How do I know they're only 12 years old? Well, they can't even seem to afford the $20 registration fee for the pro version of GM.

Honestly, I love Game Maker, I use it every day and it's provided me with thousands of hours of fun, frustration and challenge. But it also proves a few fundamental truths about game development:

1. Even if you simplify the coding aspect as much as possible, making a good game is still a helluva lot of work.

2. Most people have no original ideas.

3. Most people don't understand the fundamental basics of game play design.

4. Most people barely have one (if that) of the many skillsets needed to make a good game.

As for the forums being useful, yes, they have been, as long as you have a high tolerance for the above. But these days I tend to avoid them. The occasional brilliant ideas tend to get buried under a massive sea of crap. And I can usually figure out the problems in my games without having to ask someone in a forum, thankfully.

 

[Dhatz]

hell with what I know about programing scene, most of programmers can't do their own shit, they only use what's already done. Games are a perfect reflection of it. ain't no GTA gonna be that perfect as GTA VC. It had motorcycle acrobatics, road reflections, night club, first person mission, sfi-fi headlight flares, killer toys, yacht-based missions, car hovercraft cheat, tanks, buyable property of actual gameplay value(auto showroom, strip club) and fuckload of style.
ain't none of that beaten.

EDITh, and I am sure I left most of the other superb stuff out.

 

[nerdpride]

The article is slightly misleading. It makes it sound like this is new. I was trying to do this 6 years ago, when I was fifteen. One of my highschool friends even put out a variant of Angband (do you call that success?), asking older people to fix bugs in his C+/- code every time he put out a new version.

And then, you know, I'm sure that basic game design has been going on at that age for longer, if you count card games or board games or anything made without a computer.

 

[xscoot]

Makes sense; too many people go for big grand projects. I'm currently trying to create a Pong clone. Pong. It's simple, and easy. That's how everyone should start; with stuff that is simple and easy.

 

[Vortigar]

Internet communities are harsh mistresses and you have to be able to cope with that if you really want to get something done as a solo-developer.

Most of the young kids coming in are just dreamers though and you can't begrudge them their enthusiasm. There should be a 'softer' way of lancing their bubbles but there simply isn't. Your grand idea is not grand and the insight you've acquired into its execution is worthless in sight of the labour ahead of you. Until that realisation strikes and you recover from it you're not going to produce something worthwhile (put bluntly).

Funnily enough I've had this experience myself with writing rather than gamedesign even though I'm actually a programmer by trade.

On the other hand there´s nothing more misleading than a community which only spouts praise at your works. Exemplified by the hordes of artists on Deviantart who produce nothing worthwhile and get nothing but praise leading to souldcrushing dissappointment later on.


Thanks for the article Bradley, it set me thinking.

 

[Gerino]

As a graphical and musical imbecile, but decent coder, for about 2 years now I've been trying to create a MUD-like game from scratch. During those 2 years I've managed to get 3 working prototypes, but nothing playable. I had even tried different approaches: "normal" dev, web-based small-team dev (was going nice till we started arguing... yeah.) and a self-written robust modular architecture (most of the neccessary parts I've managed to finish and they worked, but together it resembled a rube-goldberg machine).

On the other hand, I've learnd A LOT during that time. Maybe what I, and other like me, need is just experience...

 

[Eloyas]

This remind me of some RPG maker forums, where the very atmosphere is poisonous. If you're not making a 100+ hour game with complete custom graphics musics and systems with a team of 25, you're not worth a reply. People will always criticize what you do, but they'll never actually TRY to play what you've made. As for the newbies, I try to help them when they need it, encourage them when their ideas are good and simply ignore them when they're bad. Most give up within a month anyway...

My strategy for the RPG i'm making is simply to work on it when I have free time. Who cares if I finish it in 10 years? I simply want to have fun while making it and be proud of what i've done. Sure I could make custom graphics and system, but I think having something fuctionnal is more important than having something pretty.

 

[anon_10]

i currently know no codes, can anyone advise what would be the best code to learn, and where to learn it???

 

[TailsRodrigez]

nice article, but what the hell is with that background pic, fire does not look that orange! =)

 

[More Fun To Compute]

nice article, but what the hell is with that background pic, fire does not look that orange! =)

If it was sodium that was burning it might.

 

[Slayer_2]

And that is why I design my mods solo. Sure the occasional help is great, but organizing and maintaining a team is a lot of work, and never delivers as well as something you created by yourself. As for learning, I've found the best way to do that is to look at how other mods/games are made, and figure it out from there. Internet tutorials can be a godsend as well.

I 100% agree with the statement that most people view game development as easy or a silly hobby. My parents were shocked when they found out that game development can be a paying job.

 

[Ed Ropple]

>Game Maker

Well, there's your problem. You're expecting a community about a piece of game-making software, as opposed to a community about *making games*, to have people on it who'll act like human beings. Frankly, that's your own damn fault. Go somewhere where the barrier to entry is higher and you won't get either the newbie dross or the people who prey on them.

I mean, come on. It's Game Maker. It was ridiculed as crap five years ago, and for good reason. The people who stick with it are the people who aren't using real tools (and I'm sorry, but "real tools" is a subset that definitely excludes Game Maker).