"I want to give people fun games to play!"
"I could make a better game than this!"
"I have so many ideas that I can't just ignore them!"
You most likely think about these things if you are interested in making your own game. This article will hopefully help you get on the right path. Whether you use game maker or are making your own engine, there's more you need to know than technical skill (art music coding etc). There's also game theory and a whole lot of thought must be put in, to make your game FUN. So this piece isn't about the manual work of a game, its all theory.
I've never made a game, I admit, but I've dabbled in it for a bit. My real qualifications for writing this is my understanding of game theory and the science of fun, I will try to explain patterns and established rules that a game needs to be enjoyable. Much of this could be common sense, but I see so many games that have a nice concept however I wasn't really having FUN. I wrote this a few months ago but modified it to post here, for two reasons. 1. I want feedback on my article writing skills, if someone could come and put me in my place with their REAL game theory knowledge, that would be awesome. 2. I am inspired to post it since friends of mine have been starting projects. I'll put edits in red about my current thoughts. The page will be really long without spoilers so read a section, refresh, then read another, since spoilers can't be closed.
Anyways, different genres have different specific essentials, but the most fundamental things apply to every game. Teaching the player the game properly, and training them to get good
"I could make a better game than this!"
"I have so many ideas that I can't just ignore them!"
You most likely think about these things if you are interested in making your own game. This article will hopefully help you get on the right path. Whether you use game maker or are making your own engine, there's more you need to know than technical skill (art music coding etc). There's also game theory and a whole lot of thought must be put in, to make your game FUN. So this piece isn't about the manual work of a game, its all theory.
I've never made a game, I admit, but I've dabbled in it for a bit. My real qualifications for writing this is my understanding of game theory and the science of fun, I will try to explain patterns and established rules that a game needs to be enjoyable. Much of this could be common sense, but I see so many games that have a nice concept however I wasn't really having FUN. I wrote this a few months ago but modified it to post here, for two reasons. 1. I want feedback on my article writing skills, if someone could come and put me in my place with their REAL game theory knowledge, that would be awesome. 2. I am inspired to post it since friends of mine have been starting projects. I'll put edits in red about my current thoughts. The page will be really long without spoilers so read a section, refresh, then read another, since spoilers can't be closed.
Anyways, different genres have different specific essentials, but the most fundamental things apply to every game. Teaching the player the game properly, and training them to get good
Teaching the player
When you think of super mario bros, contra, sonic, and other old games. You think about how fucking awesome they were, right? How did the developers know how to make the game good? Back then they couldn't copy another person's idea (more or less). Did you know that 100% of video game standards are set by video games?
This section is full of basic things so if you feel that you know it already, feel free to skip.
The perfect game has only one difficulty: dynamic. Assuming there are no difficulty levels, the game will gradually get harder at a pace thats not too fast, but forces the player to step up their game at times. An example is Super Mario World, my favourite platformer. Lets say you never played a Mario game, and your mom got you SMW for christmas, you can still learn the entire game in the first level and even BEFORE THE FIRST LEVEL. (This is going to be just like Egoraptor's recent Sequelitis on Megaman x, which makes me happy because SMW and MMx are both awesome games that show the same principles.)
When you start the game, you see Mario moving around, he does the following things:
stomp on koopa and picks up shell
kicks block with shell
gets a yoshi egg and rides him,
collects dragon coin, eats fruit
loses him, and gets him back.
Shows how to defeat pokey
This is like a 20 second tutorial and pretty much showed you how to play most of the game. If you want to have a game that is challenging yet teaches the player how to play properly, you will have a player that wants to win because the challenge is worthy of his time. you don't need to do this with a video at the start, how about put everything in the first level? Many games do this and it works. I should also mention that the game teaches how to do a combo with shells if there are multiple enemies, the sound of the shells striking get higher each time, but it isn't a chord (or scale, I'm not brushed up on music terminlology), so it sounds incomplete, making the player understand that YOU CAN CHAIN MORE THAN 3! This comes into play on the FIRST level where you can get a combo on 9 or so koopas, giving you a life. MORE KNOWLEDGE. The enemies in this first level are all unique. You see the sliding guy side down a slope at the very start, he moves pretty fast and a noob would likely mistime his jump to kill him. BUT you see this sliding turtle at the intro video and he gets killed like immediately after he starts sliding, so you know this enemy will not be a problem. Also the player will try to get the dragon coin that's on the other side of the slope, learning that its hard to walk up slopes! Bam, taught the player how to use slopes without making a slope marathon level. The giant bullet bill looks like a threat, it worried me as a kid. BUT YOU ARE TOO SMALL TO GET HIT initially, just walk under him. You are just short enough that you think this guy can never touch you (remember, we're assuming you don't know about mushrooms). Then you meet some yoshi with a horn or whatever, he takes two hits. Not every enemy is a goomba in this game! Next you see a block with wings on it, you want to hit so you do, and get a mushroom. This, in my opinion, is better than a plain old block because the flying block catches your attention more.
Alright, now the level starts teaching the player about DANGER. As a game developer, you should introduce risks one at a time, don't make the opponent slide on ice avoiding icicles on the first try, introduce them to both separately. That way, when the opponent sees the situation, they will formulate the strategy themselves instead of "where did that come from!?". There's a section where the game tests your slope jumping skills with 3 of them in a row, while putting more and more purple yoshis on the main path. This is a challenge to noobs and the game even throws an extra mushroom at you from out of a bush. Teaching the player that the game has good surprises. I think good surprises are the best thing you can put in a game, don't make them dependable, but put them at parts where you know it will be appreciated. This also teaches the player (if they didn't get a hit) that you can STORE items on the top of the screen. This is important for what's about to happen.
As a game dev, you need to continue the pace of teaching so that the player is always wondering what the game will do next. You should only let the player feel like they're doing a routine when they're in the middle of the game, where its just a test of their skills they collected. In SMW, the mushroom the enemy just stored is put to use in a second. There is a pirahna plant that comes out of a pipe, it hurts obviously but if the player tries to jump on it, it will still get hurt. At this point, the player should have learned about the spin jump, I mean, how could they not have tried pressing the button? This offers a genius moment for the player, they can spin jump the plants and survive. It doesn't force the player to learn it though, which is also valuable. The pirahna plant is a threat since its apparently invincible. Its not, in fact spin jumping on it is a common strategy for this game. But when the time arises to use it, the player won't be told how. The game makses the player feel like he found it out on his own. This level has a few more interesting things, but I'll end with just one more. The bullet bill at the start of the level makes a return, but this time the bullet bill is touching the floor. "OH CRAP!" they'll think, but then they see a hole, and try ducking under it, and they avoid the bullet bill. The player knows that the game won't babysit them the whole time. Reflexes are necessary, it also served as a nice closing, the very beginning and end of the levels connected.
In summation, the game must teach the player on the first level or else, the game will not have good pace. Starting the game off with no abilities, and gaining one per level could work, depending on how long they take, but notice how SMW taught the player in the first level like ten different things. A few of them were from word boxes, yes, popup info. Games today are full of them, one of the reasons I don't like GTA San Andreas is the orders you get on screen telling you exactly what to do. Its an alright game but if it made me figure out what to do, it would have been a ten out of ten. I guess gamers today are stupider or something, but this doesn't mean word boxes are BAD. They can be used to teach the player things like the HUD,which SMW does. It also teaches about picking up shells, you'd never know how to do it on your own (hold button while running up to the shell) but the player saw it in the intro, so they'd see the lone shell and instantly think "hmm how do i carry that...?" Good thing the game teaches them right there. Always expect what your player will be thinking, and either help or troll them once you know.
If you don't teach the player how to play, so that the player dies to something new every ten seconds, its a BAD GAME. Silver Surfer for the NES is my best example. It starts you off being attacked by hard enemies, and you only have one life. you don't know how many weapons you have, and you don't know what the conditions for winning or losing are. Okay, you die once, you don't think its a bad game yet. But when you die again, and again, without learning anything, you realize this is a poorly designed game. I couldn't even pass the first minute of any level as a kid (today I could blow through it with a turbo controller but I still hate it ;P) and it was just a fucking waste of time. The game grabs you by the balls and doesn't let go, that's not fun for most people.
When you think of super mario bros, contra, sonic, and other old games. You think about how fucking awesome they were, right? How did the developers know how to make the game good? Back then they couldn't copy another person's idea (more or less). Did you know that 100% of video game standards are set by video games?
This section is full of basic things so if you feel that you know it already, feel free to skip.
The perfect game has only one difficulty: dynamic. Assuming there are no difficulty levels, the game will gradually get harder at a pace thats not too fast, but forces the player to step up their game at times. An example is Super Mario World, my favourite platformer. Lets say you never played a Mario game, and your mom got you SMW for christmas, you can still learn the entire game in the first level and even BEFORE THE FIRST LEVEL. (This is going to be just like Egoraptor's recent Sequelitis on Megaman x, which makes me happy because SMW and MMx are both awesome games that show the same principles.)
When you start the game, you see Mario moving around, he does the following things:
stomp on koopa and picks up shell
kicks block with shell
gets a yoshi egg and rides him,
collects dragon coin, eats fruit
loses him, and gets him back.
Shows how to defeat pokey
This is like a 20 second tutorial and pretty much showed you how to play most of the game. If you want to have a game that is challenging yet teaches the player how to play properly, you will have a player that wants to win because the challenge is worthy of his time. you don't need to do this with a video at the start, how about put everything in the first level? Many games do this and it works. I should also mention that the game teaches how to do a combo with shells if there are multiple enemies, the sound of the shells striking get higher each time, but it isn't a chord (or scale, I'm not brushed up on music terminlology), so it sounds incomplete, making the player understand that YOU CAN CHAIN MORE THAN 3! This comes into play on the FIRST level where you can get a combo on 9 or so koopas, giving you a life. MORE KNOWLEDGE. The enemies in this first level are all unique. You see the sliding guy side down a slope at the very start, he moves pretty fast and a noob would likely mistime his jump to kill him. BUT you see this sliding turtle at the intro video and he gets killed like immediately after he starts sliding, so you know this enemy will not be a problem. Also the player will try to get the dragon coin that's on the other side of the slope, learning that its hard to walk up slopes! Bam, taught the player how to use slopes without making a slope marathon level. The giant bullet bill looks like a threat, it worried me as a kid. BUT YOU ARE TOO SMALL TO GET HIT initially, just walk under him. You are just short enough that you think this guy can never touch you (remember, we're assuming you don't know about mushrooms). Then you meet some yoshi with a horn or whatever, he takes two hits. Not every enemy is a goomba in this game! Next you see a block with wings on it, you want to hit so you do, and get a mushroom. This, in my opinion, is better than a plain old block because the flying block catches your attention more.
Alright, now the level starts teaching the player about DANGER. As a game developer, you should introduce risks one at a time, don't make the opponent slide on ice avoiding icicles on the first try, introduce them to both separately. That way, when the opponent sees the situation, they will formulate the strategy themselves instead of "where did that come from!?". There's a section where the game tests your slope jumping skills with 3 of them in a row, while putting more and more purple yoshis on the main path. This is a challenge to noobs and the game even throws an extra mushroom at you from out of a bush. Teaching the player that the game has good surprises. I think good surprises are the best thing you can put in a game, don't make them dependable, but put them at parts where you know it will be appreciated. This also teaches the player (if they didn't get a hit) that you can STORE items on the top of the screen. This is important for what's about to happen.
As a game dev, you need to continue the pace of teaching so that the player is always wondering what the game will do next. You should only let the player feel like they're doing a routine when they're in the middle of the game, where its just a test of their skills they collected. In SMW, the mushroom the enemy just stored is put to use in a second. There is a pirahna plant that comes out of a pipe, it hurts obviously but if the player tries to jump on it, it will still get hurt. At this point, the player should have learned about the spin jump, I mean, how could they not have tried pressing the button? This offers a genius moment for the player, they can spin jump the plants and survive. It doesn't force the player to learn it though, which is also valuable. The pirahna plant is a threat since its apparently invincible. Its not, in fact spin jumping on it is a common strategy for this game. But when the time arises to use it, the player won't be told how. The game makses the player feel like he found it out on his own. This level has a few more interesting things, but I'll end with just one more. The bullet bill at the start of the level makes a return, but this time the bullet bill is touching the floor. "OH CRAP!" they'll think, but then they see a hole, and try ducking under it, and they avoid the bullet bill. The player knows that the game won't babysit them the whole time. Reflexes are necessary, it also served as a nice closing, the very beginning and end of the levels connected.
In summation, the game must teach the player on the first level or else, the game will not have good pace. Starting the game off with no abilities, and gaining one per level could work, depending on how long they take, but notice how SMW taught the player in the first level like ten different things. A few of them were from word boxes, yes, popup info. Games today are full of them, one of the reasons I don't like GTA San Andreas is the orders you get on screen telling you exactly what to do. Its an alright game but if it made me figure out what to do, it would have been a ten out of ten. I guess gamers today are stupider or something, but this doesn't mean word boxes are BAD. They can be used to teach the player things like the HUD,which SMW does. It also teaches about picking up shells, you'd never know how to do it on your own (hold button while running up to the shell) but the player saw it in the intro, so they'd see the lone shell and instantly think "hmm how do i carry that...?" Good thing the game teaches them right there. Always expect what your player will be thinking, and either help or troll them once you know.
If you don't teach the player how to play, so that the player dies to something new every ten seconds, its a BAD GAME. Silver Surfer for the NES is my best example. It starts you off being attacked by hard enemies, and you only have one life. you don't know how many weapons you have, and you don't know what the conditions for winning or losing are. Okay, you die once, you don't think its a bad game yet. But when you die again, and again, without learning anything, you realize this is a poorly designed game. I couldn't even pass the first minute of any level as a kid (today I could blow through it with a turbo controller but I still hate it ;P) and it was just a fucking waste of time. The game grabs you by the balls and doesn't let go, that's not fun for most people.
Rules of the Game
This is different from the first section even though it seems similar. The first section was about how to control the character and perform tasks. Now its about what to expect from the game and how to go about using the tasks. This helps they player that the player get GOOD at the game, so you can up the difficulty. Games have unwritten rules that you just know after playing and you rely on these to play. Examples:
1. In sonic the hedgehog, when the levels goes off into a stretch, you know you're done the level, so you have time to go back and collect coins since you know where the end is. This also comes into account with bosses (for the most part) since you can't just go back when in a boss fight. The old sonic games would throw random rising spikes at you wheel you're going full speed, this would initially be seen as poor design but you should let it slide because it only happens once in the first level, and then a few more times later. So its not TOO bad, nowhere near IWBTG levels. As a kid, I thought it was poor design as a kid but then I learned its use. When you're collection rings for lives, you'd likely have around a hundred or more, suddenly the risk of losing them all becomes great. In Sonic games, you get a free life for collection 100 rings, but the rings are also counted again at the end of the level as part of a score multiplier, so you get more lives! A good player can get several lives a level, and to challenge those types of players, they implemented ways to prevent the opponent from rolling around at the speed of sound. Since the risk of instant jumping fish death or spike impalement was too scary to just go at full speed blindly. The surprise spikes would always be near rings anyways, so someone not trying to get lives wouldn't be too affected by them. This is actually rellay good design now that I see it!
2. In Donkey Kong country 2, probably the best DK game of all time, bananas will always point to good things. If it points down a chasm, you're going in. But barrels (to my memory) could send you to your death. This is really only trolling the player the first few times, then you learn not to trust barrels completely, but bananas are always truthful. These are the kind of things you tell your friend while he's playing it at your house. You didn't read it in the manual, you learned it from first hand experience, how could he know this? That's why you told him. Another example from this game, to get true 100% (those who played will know what I mean ;P), you need to break some of these rules. Its not bad because its not forcing you to do it, but it is still reasonable to figure out. For example, one of the collectibles is just to the left of the start of one of the levels, off screen. In every other level, you can't go left, so this is usually the last one people collect. My little sister actually found this one and it blew my fucking mind. I wasn't even mad because it was just so clever, like a good prank. Understand what you would find acceptable ways to break the rules, and use these in your levels. At most, 2 times, or else the rule will just be useless. Like if you have destructible boxes that never have anything, make the player break a somewhat out of reach one to get it. The fact that it sits alone should be suspicious enough. Ever get that feeling like there's treasure in that road off the beaten path? you've been trained to think so! That's good!
In summation, the game must have routines and patterns that give the player something to familiarize with. It could be a hard miniboss that reoccurs, with new tricks, or an obstacle that gets harder each time. I've noticed that games NEVER make you do the same thing too many times. You don't have to fight 3 of the same minibosses in a row (Fighting 3 at the same time is different, it is a different test than just doing what you just did. Ever thought "ugh agaiiin?!!?" when you just killed a really hard guy? *coughcoughhorseheadfromzelda2coughcough*, you don't have to make the same 3 difficult jumps in a row, etc. The challenge is from learning how to over come it.
In Megaman 2: Heatman's Stage, there are blocks that disappear and reappear. I don't have to tell you how hard these are, but its frustration doesn't ruin it. You only have to really do it once, or you don't even have to do it at all with item 2. "but but its not once, you have to make several jumps." Well yes its many jumps, but its just one gauntlet. A Gauntlet in video games is a section that is really hard and is meant to be a significantly tough part of a level. The player must feel like they achieved something by defeating it. This is the key part, if a level feels too long, or if any one part of the game is too tedious, why should they keep playing? Its not even fun anymore.
This is different from the first section even though it seems similar. The first section was about how to control the character and perform tasks. Now its about what to expect from the game and how to go about using the tasks. This helps they player that the player get GOOD at the game, so you can up the difficulty. Games have unwritten rules that you just know after playing and you rely on these to play. Examples:
1. In sonic the hedgehog, when the levels goes off into a stretch, you know you're done the level, so you have time to go back and collect coins since you know where the end is. This also comes into account with bosses (for the most part) since you can't just go back when in a boss fight. The old sonic games would throw random rising spikes at you wheel you're going full speed, this would initially be seen as poor design but you should let it slide because it only happens once in the first level, and then a few more times later. So its not TOO bad, nowhere near IWBTG levels. As a kid, I thought it was poor design as a kid but then I learned its use. When you're collection rings for lives, you'd likely have around a hundred or more, suddenly the risk of losing them all becomes great. In Sonic games, you get a free life for collection 100 rings, but the rings are also counted again at the end of the level as part of a score multiplier, so you get more lives! A good player can get several lives a level, and to challenge those types of players, they implemented ways to prevent the opponent from rolling around at the speed of sound. Since the risk of instant jumping fish death or spike impalement was too scary to just go at full speed blindly. The surprise spikes would always be near rings anyways, so someone not trying to get lives wouldn't be too affected by them. This is actually rellay good design now that I see it!
2. In Donkey Kong country 2, probably the best DK game of all time, bananas will always point to good things. If it points down a chasm, you're going in. But barrels (to my memory) could send you to your death. This is really only trolling the player the first few times, then you learn not to trust barrels completely, but bananas are always truthful. These are the kind of things you tell your friend while he's playing it at your house. You didn't read it in the manual, you learned it from first hand experience, how could he know this? That's why you told him. Another example from this game, to get true 100% (those who played will know what I mean ;P), you need to break some of these rules. Its not bad because its not forcing you to do it, but it is still reasonable to figure out. For example, one of the collectibles is just to the left of the start of one of the levels, off screen. In every other level, you can't go left, so this is usually the last one people collect. My little sister actually found this one and it blew my fucking mind. I wasn't even mad because it was just so clever, like a good prank. Understand what you would find acceptable ways to break the rules, and use these in your levels. At most, 2 times, or else the rule will just be useless. Like if you have destructible boxes that never have anything, make the player break a somewhat out of reach one to get it. The fact that it sits alone should be suspicious enough. Ever get that feeling like there's treasure in that road off the beaten path? you've been trained to think so! That's good!
In summation, the game must have routines and patterns that give the player something to familiarize with. It could be a hard miniboss that reoccurs, with new tricks, or an obstacle that gets harder each time. I've noticed that games NEVER make you do the same thing too many times. You don't have to fight 3 of the same minibosses in a row (Fighting 3 at the same time is different, it is a different test than just doing what you just did. Ever thought "ugh agaiiin?!!?" when you just killed a really hard guy? *coughcoughhorseheadfromzelda2coughcough*, you don't have to make the same 3 difficult jumps in a row, etc. The challenge is from learning how to over come it.
In Megaman 2: Heatman's Stage, there are blocks that disappear and reappear. I don't have to tell you how hard these are, but its frustration doesn't ruin it. You only have to really do it once, or you don't even have to do it at all with item 2. "but but its not once, you have to make several jumps." Well yes its many jumps, but its just one gauntlet. A Gauntlet in video games is a section that is really hard and is meant to be a significantly tough part of a level. The player must feel like they achieved something by defeating it. This is the key part, if a level feels too long, or if any one part of the game is too tedious, why should they keep playing? Its not even fun anymore.
With these two fundamental rules, you can now make your game! Many indie games have great level design, but they also do things we kinda accept from indie games like ridiculously hard parts (bad gauntlets), or parts that drag on. The player needs to be motivated at all times. Usually the game's goal is the motivator, but there needs to be more short-term motivators like new powers, or secrets. Hopefully this brought some new information to future devs, and hopefully veterans can agree with what I'm saying.